


Omnis Vir Lupus

by violethowler



Series: Gold Paladin [2]
Category: Red Rising Trilogy - Pierce Brown, Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Because Tactus, Canon Bisexual Character, Canon Gay Character, Canon Gay Relationship, Canon-Typical Violence, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, Explicit Language, F/F, F/M, Golden Son Spoilers, M/M, Morning Star spoilers, Multi, No Smut, No Voltron Pairings, Recreational Drug Use, Season/Series 04 Spoilers, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-01-27 11:32:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 34
Words: 72,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12580912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violethowler/pseuds/violethowler
Summary: Shiro's presence in The Society has opened Pandora's box, and after Darrow's Triumph, rebellion is spreading like wildfire. Darrow's lieutenants struggle to salvage a victory after the Jackal's treacherous bloodbath, while Mustang tries to salvage their forces in space as the Augustan fleet splinters between those loyal to her, and those who've pledged allegiance to her brother. 804 years in the past, Lotor's intervention in the Battle of Naxzela saved many lives, but it might have cost one as well.





	1. A New Defender

**Author's Note:**

> Reposting the sequel to Hic Sunt Leones from my fanfiction.net account. 
> 
> To keep the POV chapters streamlined so I'm not jumping around too much, the story will alternate between 4 main POV characters: Shiro, Keith, Darrow, and Mustang. This way I don't keep jumping around to different characters all the time and I can keep the story focused.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 3/4/18: After extensively reworking the plot, I've completely re-written this prologue. Instead of Keith's perspective of the aftermath of the fight with Zarkon in "Blackout" we now get Matt's perspective on the final scenes of "A New Defender".

* * *

**Prologue**

* * *

#### Zone Rebulon 55

#### 2037:

            “We’ll never penetrate those shields!” Matt shouted over the com as his ship continued to fire on the weapon mounted at the front of the lone Galra battle cruiser. Every rebel ship in the coalition was pouring all their firepower into the shields protecting that weapon, but nothing could punch through. The fact that they’d lost contact with Voltron once the weapon began charging was an ominous sign, and time was clearly running out. The weapon appeared to be fully charged, and nobody wanted to find out just what this thing was capable of.

            Suddenly, Keith’s stolen Galra fighter fired its engines and started flying straight toward the ship’s defensive shields.  

            “Wait, Keith!” Matt called out. But still the stolen fighter flew on. “What are you doing? Keith, no!” Matt held his breath as Keith’s fighter raced ever closer to the energy shield, pouring every scrap of firepower that his own ship had to give into that barrier, desperate to stop them before Keith sacrificed himself.

            Suddenly, a violet laser beam streaked in from off the Galra cruiser’s starboard side and pushed straight through the added weapon’s shielding, lacing through until it fired out the other side. A fraction of a second later, the entire front section of the ship disappeared in a massive explosion.

            When the light from the blast faded, the ship remained undamaged, surrounded by the shattered wreckage of the Galra weapon. But Keith’s stolen fighter was nowhere to be seen. Matt could hear Coran declaring that Naxela was returning to normal, but right now, that was irrelevant. Not even the fact that _Prince Lotor_ had been the one to save the day was able to register in his mind as he frantically tried to reach Keith over the coms. There was no response.

            “Great job, Keith!” Shiro’s voice called out over the com. Matt slumped against the pilot seat of his ship as the Galran cruiser jumped to hyperspeed and fled. Immediately, he took his ship towards the debris field to look for any signs of survivors.

            “It wasn’t Keith,” Matt replied, voice trembling as he frantically searched for any sign that the former Red Paladin was still alive. “It was Lotor. The cannon on his ship was the only thing powerful enough to take down that shield. And Shiro… Keith’s…”

            “What happened?” Shiro asked, a nervous edge to his voice. “Is Keith okay?”

            “I don’t know!” Matt snapped. “He was trying to do a kamikaze run on the shield at the same time Lotor fired on it. I can’t reach him on the coms. I’m searching the debris field for his ship now.”   _Don’t you dare die on me, Kogane,_ he thought angrily as he turned his ship towards the nearest cloud of wreckage. Matt hadn’t been as close to the former Red Paladin as Shiro was, but they had been their own little trio like Lance and Hunk were with Pidge.

He ignored Lotor’s offer to have a discussion as he frantically piloted his ship through the clusters of wreckage. If Keith really was dead because Lotor had gotten there a fraction of a second too late, there was no way they would listen to a word the Galran prince had to say. And as much as Matt hated the idea of working with the son of the man responsible for the hell he’d endured for almost a year, he knew the coalition couldn’t afford to pass up an opportunity to gain such detailed, inside information that not even the Blade of Marmora could acquire.

He forced those thoughts out of his head as he turned his attention back to the hunt for Keith. All around him were the shattered remains of the empire’s new weapon. But no sign of Keith’s starfighter. Matt held his breath as he searched. All the debris around him was from the weapon, but he wasn’t seeing anything that looked like it came from a Galra fighter. It was as if Keith had simply vanished into thin air.

            Suddenly, he got a glimpse of something white amidst a distant cluster of purple. Cautiously, he flew in that direction while the remaining ships broke off to escort Lotor to the Castle of Lions. _Where was it?_ He thought to himself as he approached the patch of debris. _Where was it.... There it is!_ He turned on the ship’s exterior lights, illuminating a sleek, elegant ship of a design he had never seen before. It didn’t look Galran or Altean. If anything, it more closely resembled some of the conceptual designs he’d seen in classes at the Garrison than anything else. And emblazoned along the ship’s sides was single golden crescent moon.


	2. Only the Dark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> # Part I: Thorns
> 
> # "Per Aspera Ad Astra"

#### Agea

#### Mars

#### March 16th, 2841:

Darrow's only comfort was the warmth of the rising sun as Roque carried him through the streets of Agea. Imprisoned in his own body, the Reaper of Mars couldn't stand. He couldn't stretch, or speak, or curl up into a ball and weep for the people he'd lost. His arms and legs dangled lifelessly from his friend's shoulders, leaving alone with the darkness of his thoughts and frantic beating of his own heart. With the Jackal's paralytic toxin coursing through his veins, he could do nothing to combat the maddening urge to scratch his nose. To reach out to his friends and give them tactical advice to get them out of Agea.

But he was alone. Condemned to watch as his allies fought and died to keep him alive when he would no longer communicate with the outside world. He was a prisoner in his own flesh, forced to watch everything around him until either he died of old age, or his friends put him out of his misery. Or until he went mad, his subconscious reminded him treacherously.

 _No,_ he thought, desperately trying to block out the fear. But his inner demons continued to persist.  _It's only the dark,_ he reassured himself, trying to distance himself from the voice that gave rise to his fears and regrets. Death would have been a kinder fate than this.  _Man is no island,_ he thought to himself.  _We need those who love us. We need those who hate us. We need others to tether us to life, to give us a reason to live, to feel._ While he could still see his friends, the inability to interact with them made it feel as if all he had was his own inner darkness. He wanted to scream. He wanted to laugh. To weep, to hum, to whistle… Anything to purge the poison from his system, burn up the energy building inside him, and allow his body to shiver into sleep.

He listened to the voices around him as Roque, Victra, Shiro and Quinn carried him through the war-torn streets of Agea, fighting to make it off the surface of Mars alive. While the paralytic effects of the poison muffled their voices, he could still make out what they were saying. But while he couldn't act or communicate, he was imprisoned in solitude. His subconscious burned with the desire to lash out at his enemies and destroy everything around them. To drop all subterfuge and burn everything Gold had built to the ground. Darrow begged and bargained with any deity he could think of, desperate for a release from this prison of isolation. He made silent prayers to Eo, happy that she had been spared a fate like this. But deep down, he no longer believed that she was listening.

With nothing to do in the solitude of his own mind, Darrow sang childhood ballads and recited works of classical literature from Old Earth. First, in Greek and Latin. Then, in the dead languages of Arabic, English, Chinese, and German, recalling memories of dataDrops Mateo had given him at the Sons of Ares safehouse in Yorkton when he had been no more than a boy, seeking strength from the wayward Argive who only wished to find his way home. But then, like a snake whispering poison in his ear, his subconscious reminded him that after Odysseus had heroically broken the walls of try with his wooden horse the way Darrow had broken the Bellona armies in his Iron Rain on Mars, Odysseus' soldiers entered Troy, then proceeded to rape, pillage and burn everything in their way.

 _All deeds that last are painted in blood_ , Darrow thought to himself as the voices and images of his subconscious echoed in the back of his mind, forcing himself to admit that he had lost his way. Visions of the past danced before his eyes in a grief-fueled haze. Again, and again, he jerked Eo's fragile little ankles. Broke Julian's face. Heard Pax and Quinn and Tactus and Lorn breathe their last. He had caused so much pain in such a short time. And for what? To fail his wife. To fail his people. And fail Ares. Fail his friends. Aside from the four now frantically attempting to evacuate him from the Martian capital, Darrow wondered how many of his friends were even left. Sevro? Ragnar? The Howlers? Mustang? Another wave of intrusive thoughts swept over him, gnawing at him with a deep, primal fear.

 _No!_ he snapped mentally.  _It's only the dark playing tricks on my mind._ As his body jostled from Roque's sudden movement, Darrow could feel the rapid beating of his heart, reminding himself that he was a man. A Red of Lykos. A Helldiver. Despite the reassurance, self-doubt echoed in his mind. Despite her good intentions, Eo had abandoned him to face the world alone, taking their unborn child with her. Now he was afraid that Mustang had left him to die. He had been too proud, too stupid, too wicked throughout his infiltration of Gold. And now his subconscious whispered that he had been forgotten. Or was he? Darrow asked himself that question, only to decide that no, he wasn't, when Victra put a hand on his shoulder and whispered in his ear not to give up because Mustang was waiting for him.

He knew that by all rights, he should be dead. He heard what the Jackal's plans for him had been after Lorn was killed in the garden. He was to be given over to Octavia, so that her Carvers could dissect him and discover the secrets of how a Red became Gold. So they could learn if there were others like him. But Shiro's intervention and Mustang's paranoia of her brother allowed him to live another day. But despite his gratitude for the rescue, he feared that his friends had only delayed the inevitable. It would be better, he felt, for him to die hear and now rather than be tortured alive by the Sovereign.

Roque had once told him that when all was lost, honor demanded death. His friend believed it to be a noble end, but what would a rich poet know of death? The poor knew death. Slaves knew death. But even as Darrow yearned for death, he feared it. Because the more he saw of this cruel world, the less he believed that it ended in some pleasant fiction. The Vale was not real. It was a lie told by mothers and fathers to give their starving children a reason for the horror. But there was no reason. Eo was gone. She never watched him fight for her dream. She didn't care what fate awaited him at the Institute or that he loved Mustang, because the day she died, she became nothing. There was nothing but this world. It was the beginning and the end. Humanity's one chance at joy before the darkness of death.

Roque shifted his body so that Darrow was being carried bridal style, and as he lay in his friend's arms, he began to ask himself what price he would be willing to pay to move again. Or what price the Sovereign might demand of his loyalty in the unlikely event that she decided to let him live. He could easily imagine either her or the Jackal offering to end his suffering by admitting defeat, at the cost of those he loved. Would his family and friends want him to live if the price was their own lives? Would such darkness be right? Darrow knew he was important. Eo had said so. Ares had chosen him. Darrow, of all the Reds. He could break the chains. He could live for more. It would not be selfish for him to focus on the big picture. In the grand scheme of things, it would be selfless, really.

Darrow knew that his mother would beg him to make that sacrifice. His brother and sister would understand. He could save his people. Eo's dream had to be made real, no matter the cost. It was Darrow's responsibility to persevere. It was his right.  _Do it,_ the voice of his inner demons snarled as Darrow wished for the ability to bang his head against something and silence the voices and scream at the metaphorical darkness to go away. It could not trick him. It could not break him. He would rather smash his head against a rock until he died than be forced to betray who he was. He wanted to be home, to be gone from this hellish warzone. But if the only path forward was a mercy killing, whether from his friends or self-inflicted, then he would take it. If there was no pleasant end to this world, then nothingness would suffice.

But he would not have to take that path. Shiro's very presence was a wildcard. A spanner in the works that had thrown the Jackal's carefully ordered massacre into chaos. The Paladin of Voltron had changed so much simply by being there. By saving Quinn's life, Shiro gave Darrow the chance, to sway Roque to this side. Because Roque was alive, he hadn't turned against him. Because Mustang set up the Black Paladin's credentials, she figured out Darrow's secret by herself, she could process everything on her own and warn her friends to prepare for the Jackal's treachery. And because of that, almost two dozen of the Jackal's intended victims were free. They just needed to hold out long enough for the Telemanuses to send a rescue ship from orbit. It was not over. That would not be how this ended.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Book-compliant chapter that condenses Darrow's character development from The Box at the beginning of Morning Star into a single chapter.
> 
> 2/18/18: Minor edits to prepare for re-writes of Chapter 1


	3. Fight or Flight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2/18/18: Minor edits to accommodate the rewrite of Hic Sunt Leones.
> 
> 7/7/18: Corrected the name of Romulus au Raa's daughter.

#### Agea

#### Mars

#### March 16th, 2841

"Shit!" Shiro cursed as he ducked behind an overturned table to avoid the incoming hail of gunfire. He knew it was only a temporary respite, as he saw dents appearing in the underside of the metal surface, but it kept his head from being blown off in the first five seconds of the skirmish. The Black Paladin was worn out, exhausted, and bleeding from four different wounds. Right now, he just needed a minute to breathe.  _Is that too much to ask?_ He wondered to himself as he returned fire. As he crouched back down behind the table, he nodded to Roque and moved back into the room in search of better cover.

It had been almost five hours since the Jackal's ambush at the Triumph, and already the man's newly dubbed "Boneriders" were on their tails. Their initial goal had been to reach the nearest landing pad and capture a ship to escape the planet, but they found out the hard way that the Jackal had all the landing pads within the city limits on lockdown. They lost two of the adult Golds in the ambush before they escaped back into the city. After that disastrous failure, their goal changed to getting out of Agea so Mustang could send an extraction team. Roque and Victra had contacted their ships in orbit and designated Mustang as acting commander of their respective fleets until they could get into orbit to take command of their ships themselves. The ArchGoverness of Triton and the other Golds who survived the massacre did the same.

After four hours of constant running, the group had taken shelter inside a Pearl Club that was undergoing renovations. They'd barely been in there for fifteen minutes when Antonia, evidently blinded in her rage at the loss of her leg, made a public broadcast on the HC revealing the truth about Darrow for all to hear. Shiro didn't even know how the younger Julii sister had even gotten ahold of the footage of Darrow's carving, but that was another matter for another time. Right now, the group needed to focus on staying alive, because within minutes of the broadcast ending, the Jackal's dogs had found them. The remaining adult Golds had deserted the group after that, and had presumably told the Boneriders where to find them.

Roque and Quinn slipped further back into the room with Darrow's comatose body and the gaggle of Gold children while Shiro and Victra provided cover fire with scorchers salvaged from the ambush at the landing pad. While they kept the Boneriders focused on them, the ArchGoverness of Triton stepped out of the shadows and slit the squad leader's throat.  _Two down,_ Shiro thought as he put a round through another Bonerider's head.  _Twelve to go._ The lights in the room flickered as a stray scorcher shot ricocheted against the wall and destroyed one of the overhead lights of the Pearl Club. Shiro fought the urge to rush forward and kill them all with his bare hands, reminding himself that he no longer had the cybernetic arm he'd been fitted with during his time as a prisoner of the Galra, and that his new flesh and blood arm that Mustang's late father had ordered carved for him couldn't burn through solid metal.

Shiro fired blindly behind him as he and Victra sprinted through the doors leading from the club's atrium into the main lounge. He cried out in agony as a bullet tore into his left leg. He slammed his hands on the control panel for the doors and dropped to his knees as they slid shut behind him. Victra fired her scorcher at the control panel, frying the doors shut and buying the group time to catch their breath and set up an ambush. Victra pulled Shiro to his feet and put her arm under his shoulders and helped him walk over to the rest of the group. But right now, they didn't know the terrain, and they had trapped themselves in a confined space with no visible exits.

Shiro grimaced as he looked down at the trail of blood dripping out of the bullet hole in his leg.  _It doesn't look like the bullet hit the bones,_ he thought to himself with relief as he examined the blood spatters near the bullet as they limped past where the ancient projectile had lodged itself in one of the lounge chairs. As they limped towards the barricade of tables the ArchGoverness of Triton was leading the children in setting up, Thesalia au Raa, the granddaughter of the Ionian ArchGovernor, left the group and put shoulder under Shiro's free arm, giving him a better support so Victra could sweep the room for an exit. Roque and Quinn leaned Darrow against the wall and headed towards the doors to reinforce the entrance. When they reached the barricade, Raina helped him sit down next to the Reaper, then tore off pieces of her dress to bandage the wound in his leg.

Her brooch depicting the four-headed lightning dragon of House Raa, was ruined, having narrowly stopped a bullet aimed for her neck back at the landing pad. Her gray dress was caked with blood stains from both the ambush and the massacre at the Triumph. While her father had fought off the Jackal's dogs, she'd tried to run around the fountain, but Vixus slashed her legs as he walked past to attack Shiro. Disoriented, she'd limped forward and wept before Antonia came to finish her off. Thankfully, Shiro had cut off the younger Julii sister's leg while Victra carried the nine-year-old to safety.  _And now,_ Shiro thought sadly as she finished bandaging his wound,  _there's not a good chance she'll live much longer anyway._ Victra returned few minutes later, panting and out of breath.

"No good," she reported. "I found a service entrance, but Boneriders and Praetorians were already closing in. I used that pulseGrenade we stole from the landing pad to collapse the entrance and limit their options. We've got them in a bottleneck, but until we can stop them, we can't get out." She said this just as Roque and Quinn had finished barricading the doors and returned to their miniature fortifications.

"Any word from orbit?" Quinn asked as Roque went through the group's inventory of weapons and equipment with the Tritonian ArchGoverness. Shiro shook his head.

"I tried calling Tactus before the Boneriders showed up," the Black Paladin answered. "Too much interference. All I could make out was that there were skirmishes breaking out aboard our ships. Assassination attempts… Saboteurs… The works. We're on our own." As he climbed shakily to his feet, he grimaced as Raina's makeshift tourniquet bit into his leg above the bullet wound.  _It can't end like this_ _,_ he pleaded silently, desperately hoping that his fellow Paladins might miraculously travel to the future and save the day _._  His eyes welled up with tears as he thought of everything he still had left to lose. The friends he'd made in this era, his boyfriend, his had been fighting in the arena and in space for two years now, and it seemed like this would be how it finally ended. Trapped in an empty nightclub while they waited for the armed killers to break in and kill them all. The sound of a welding torch cutting the doors began to drift into the room, signaling to the survivors of the Jackal's massacre that they were running out of time.

Without a moment to lose, they began to arm themselves for battle. Victra and Quinn went and stood by the door, razors in hand so they could attack from the sides and rear of the Boneriders' formation. Roque and Tridenti au Norvo positioned themselves along the sides of the room, halfway between the doors and the tables and armed with scorchers, while Shiro and some of the older children waited behind the overturned tables with old slug-throwers as their last line of defense.  _If I'm going to die today,_ he told himself.  _At least I'll go down fighting._

As the crack between the two doors began to glow red with the head of the Boneriders' implements, the hiss of the welding torch was abruptly silenced by the sound of gunfire from the other side of the door.  _Backup finally arrived,_ Shiro thought to himself as a series of howls echoed through the air vents between the two rooms. There were a few more gunshots, followed by the familiar sound of razors slicing through flesh, and then, there was silence. Everyone held their breath, unsure of what to do or what had just happened. Did their friends defeat the Jackal's dogs, or had the Boneriders beaten their rescuers back? Their answer came a minute later in the form of a knock against the door.

"Hail, Reaper," a young woman's voice called out through the door. Shiro's eyes widened as he recognized the voice. It belonged to Milia au Trachus, one of the Golds from Darrow's army at the Institute. He'd only met her in person a few times, aboard the  _Pax_ the day of the Iron Rain and in Agea on the day of the Triumph, but her voice was unmistakable.

"How do we know this isn't one of the Jackal's tricks?" Victra retorted. They heard Milia sigh through the door.

"Honestly," Milia replied in exasperation. "After everything the Jackal did at the Institute do you really think we'd ally ourselves with him? We're here because the Reaper needs our help and we don't give a fuck what Color he is." Shiro felt nervous as everyone looked to him to decide how to proceed. Once again, the burden of leadership was on his shoulders. Even if Tridenti and the children didn't know of his status as the Black Paladin, they still looked to him for leadership. And with Darrow incapacitated, Victra and Roque looked to his outsider's perspective for guidance.  _Guess I've got no choice but to step back into the role,_ he thought reluctantly as he nodded for Victra to open the door.

With a swift kick, the Julii heiress broke the lock on the door and forced them open with her bare hands. Everyone held their breath, waiting for the shooting to start again. But no gunshots came. Instead, Milia stepped forward, wolf-skin cloak around her shoulders as she offered her hand to Victra. Shiro's eyes threatened to pop out of his head in shock when he looked through the door to see dozens of Golds from Darrow's army crowded in the Pearl Club antechamber as they scavenged weapons and gear from the dead Boneriders.

"We contacted Mustang as soon as the footage of Darrow's carving hit the net," Milia explained as she walked into the room. "She told us about the poison, what antidote we needed, and where to get some. We killed the rest of the Boneriders after you lot left the landing pad and snagged one of their coms. That's how we knew you were all here." Behind her, several Golds came in carrying food and medical supplies. Shiro helped pass them out to the children while Nyla, another Gold from the Institute, treated his leg wound. After making sure that the bleeding had stopped, she sealed up the bullet hole with a resFlesh gun.

"That still doesn't explain why you're here," Victra commented icily. Milia's eyes betrayed hurt at the accusation, even though Shiro could tell she understood the reason for it. As she finished patching up Shiro's leg, Nyla stood up and turned around to face the older Gold.

"Look, Julii," Nyla snapped. "We don't give a shit what Color Darrow is. We're here because even when he was keeping the truth from us about what he really is, he ate with us, hunted for us, cooked with us, dug shit pits for us, fought for us, bled for us, killed for us, and was even willing to die for us. There's riots and uprisings breaking out across Mars after your sister released his Carving onto the web. The Hierarchy can burn to the ground for all we care, because the Reaper needs his army. That's all that matters." Victra nodded appreciatively as she went over and helped Shiro to his feet. Meanwhile, Milia removed a syringe and moved toward the Reaper's paralyzed body.

"Come on, boss," she said as she crouched down and injected the antidote into Darrow's chest. "Time to get you back on your feet."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One thing I wish had been different in the books was giving some more time in the limelight to some of the prominent members of Darrow's army. I love Pax, Sevro, Mustang, Tactus, and the Howlers, but I would have liked to have seen Milia and Nyla some more, get to know them better, see what side they were on in Morning Star... So I'm giving them that limelight here.
> 
> I made up the name of the ArchGoverness of Triton for the purposes of this story. As a little reference to The Little Mermaid, I picked Tridenti, the Latin word for trident, I have no idea if the Norvo family holds the ArchGovernorship of Triton, but since they're the only Gold family mentioned as being from Triton, I'm going with it for now until Pierce or Iron Gold prove me wrong.


	4. Battle of Deimos

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2/19/18: Edited to account for changes to Hic Sunt Leones

####  _Deja Thoris_ Bridge

#### Mars

#### March 16th, 741 P.C.E.

 

Gunfire and shouts echoed through the halls as Mustang stood on the bridge of one of her father's warships, the dreadnought _Deja Thoris_. Klaxons blared as she shouted orders for the gunBlues to concentrate their fire on the _Pandora_. With her mother's death in the massacre, the Julii warships now legally belonged to Victra. Unfortunately, Antonia had already staffed several of the large black ships with her own paid stooges instead. Half of the corporate fleet remained loyal to Victra, and complied when she placed Mustang in command of the battle group, and the other half went over to Antonia. Less than a month after the Iron Rain, war raged over the surface of Mars once again.

As soon as she'd received Shiro's warning, she had sprung into action without hesitation. After broadcasting a message to the fleet that a coup was underway, Mustang quickly took command of the situation and prepared for the inevitable. True to form, her brother had sent assassins to eliminate the ship commanders who would not side with him. There were firefights on bridges and in staterooms, but the saboteurs and assassins were ultimately beaten back on almost all the ships aligned with Darrow. Orion had been badly shot in the arm, but most of their ship commanders had survived unscathed. When it became clear that the assassination attempts had failed, her brother played his hand. The Augustus armada fractured and the battle of Mars began anew.

Within minutes of the battle breaking out, battle lines had been drawn. Roque and Victra’s ships, along with those Houses Codovan, Norvo, Arcos, Telemanuses, and other Gold families murdered in her brother's ambush had sided with her, and by extension, with Darrow. Combined with her father's ships, a little over half of the armada stood with her against Adrius. The remainder – consisting of Martian vassal Houses such as Corvos, Falthe, Sarna, Rath, and Voloxes – fell under her brother's control. From there, it was an all-out free for all as both sides fired railguns, leechCraft, and nuclear missiles back and forth across the inky darkness of space. For four hours they battled it out, and then it all ground to a halt when Antonia went on the net with Thistle by her side and made a public broadcast exposing the truth about Darrow for everyone in the solar system to see.

When the video of Darrow's carving was first broadcast, the battle quickly ground to a halt, and her brother's ships withdrew towards Deimos. _No doubt,_ she'd surmised, _to see who will defect to his side now that they know the truth._ Once Thistle and Antonia had finished their pitch for the rebel houses to change sides, the first thing she’d done was call up everyone who’d served in Darrow’s army at the Institute. A surprising number of them had declared their allegiance to the Reaper, and Mustang had provided them with directions for where to find the antidote to the poison her brother had given him. When that was done, Roque and Victra’s ships had contacted her pledging their support, and Tactus had taken command of the two battle groups in their friends’ absence.

Then, she made her response to the broadcast clear when she fired a missile at her brother’s new flagship _Lion of Mars_ – formerly the _Invictus –_ broadcasting to the worlds that whatever his Color, she stood with the Reaper. The Telemanus clan quickly followed suit, along with the Arcos, Roque’s ships, and the half of the Julii fleet that remained loyal to Victra. To her surprise, the family Norvo of Triton remained by their side as well, along with many of the other families as well. Only a handful of Aureate families defected from the rebellion, chief among them the Codovans of Ganymede, who broke away from the battle entirely and fled outward towards the Rim.

The defections notwithstanding, she found it touching that so many of her Color were willing to stand with Darrow even when they knew he was not one of them. With their brief respite over, the battle resumed. Mustang flinched as she looked out the viewport to see the Telemanus flagship _Reynard_ exchanging broadsides with one of Antonia's destroyers as missiles streaked back and forth across the darkness of space. Veils of flak and energy shields prevented most the enemy warheads from hitting their mark, but a few ships took damage. She winced when an Arcos corvette suffered a critical hit to the bridge, the ship listing to the side as it vented oxygen and crewmembers into space. The sorrow of lives lost was tempered by satisfaction that the crew would be avenged as railgun rounds from the Pax hammered into the ship that had fired the missile.

Her ship rocked as railgun fire penetrated her shields and struck the _Deja Thoris_ along the starboard side. Kavax and Daxo had gone down to the surface to organize and evacuate their legions before her brother could take power. With any luck, they'd be able to contact Darrow, Shiro, and the others and get them off the surface as well. Behind her, Theodora relayed orders to the ships of the Golds murdered in the garden through the comBlues while the war raged around them. Mustang was relieved that there was one less person to look out for, but as she looked at the tactical display and realized just how many ships remained by her side even knowing the truth about Darrow, a thought occurred to her.

 _We can win the day,_ she realized with a shiver of excitement running down her spine. _My brother's ships are evenly matched with mine. If Darrow can keep loyalist forces occupied on the ground, we may be able to push back and maintain control of Mars._ It was a risky gamble, particularly given that fleet warfare had never been her forte. Politics had always been her specialty. But if Kavax could at least get Roque and Victra back into orbit to take command of their ships personally, then they might stand a fighting chance. Almost immediately, she initiated a conference call between herself, Tactus, Orion, and the Telemanuses to tell them what she was planning. The Telemanus patriarch promised to bring them into orbit as quickly as possible, and Tactus transferred command of Roque and Victra’s ships to Orion so he could head planetside with Kavax and help lead troops on the ground.  

As a nuclear missile streaked away from her ship towards the enemy formation, her datapad buzzed with an incoming message. She pushed a button to answer the call and breathed a sigh of partial relief when a hologram of Sevro's head appeared a few centimeters above the arm-mounted pad.

"What the fuck is going on!?" he said bluntly. "We got your message about the ambush but now Darrow's carving's been leaked onto the net. I can't get ahold of the others, and we're missing a few Howlers."

"Sevro, slow down," Mustang replied. "I'm trying to coordinate everything under fire here. Darrow and the others got away. Lorn didn't make it, but they got most of his grandchildren out, along with a few of our supporters. I don't know any better way to put this Sevro, but my brother put your father's head in the mask box." Sevro paused, his face awash with a combination of anger, grief, and sad resignation.

"Makes sense," he said, trying to be nonchalant, even if Mustang knew that receiving confirmation of his father's demise hurt him more than he was willing to admit. "Harmony sold us out to the Jackal out of spite for Darrow not blowing himself up at the Gala like she wanted him to. She led a Lurcher squad right to the warehouse. Only Dancer, Mickey, Evey, and a few dozen high-ranked Sons escaped with their lives. Last anyone saw of Pop, he was throwing down with Cassius and a squad of Praetorians all by himself." The hologram glittered as tears welled up in his eyes.

"We fell back to the main HQ in Tinos,” he went on. “Dad set up this underground refugee city there for people that were evacuated from condemned mines," he continued. "We evacuated most of Lykos on the way in, so Darrow's family is safe. No word from Quicksilver yet, but he's probably waiting to see how everything shakes out today before he makes his next move." As they talked, Mustang noticed that he didn't ask whether Thistle had made it out of the massacre. _Which means he's already seen the broadcast and knows where she stands,_ she thought to herself with a twinge of sympathy and regret as they discussed what their next move was. _It's always sad when our beliefs drive friendships apart._

After getting confirmation that the remaining Howlers were still willing to stay with them even knowing what Darrow really was, Mustang filled Sevro in on what was transpiring on the ground and gave him Milia's contact information so he could rendezvous with Darrow and the rest of their friends in Agea. She stumbled as a nuclear warhead slammed into the side of her ship. Thankfully the legal limit for ship-to-ship combat was only five megatons, otherwise the shields wouldn't have held up at all. As it was, they merely took a beating. _Time to see if we can leverage this setback into a victory today,_ _she thought to herself as she gave orders for the gunBlues to return fire._


	5. The Tide

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Book-heavy chapter  
> 2/18/18: Slight rewrite to accommodate changes to Hic Sunt Leones.

#### Agea

#### Mars

#### March 16th, 2841

Darrow was silent as he flew through the lowColor district of Agea. Craters pockmarked the streets of the Martian capital, while buildings glowed from the residual heat of pulseFist blasts. Graffiti and rage bled out from the cracking walls, depicting profanity in fifteen different dialects. And to the right of a crude sketch of the Sovereign being decapitated by a scythe was an image of Eo hanging from the gallows in digital paint, her hair aflame and "Break the Chains" written diagonally across her chest, a single flower among the weeds of hate. A knot formed in Darrow's throat This was the real world, not the dream that Golds lived in. Everywhere the Reaper looked, he felt the silent screams of a civilization that had been stepped on for hundreds of years.

The Sons of Ares were not ready for open war. Fitchner had known that. But now, there was no choice. The resistance against Gold had been operating in the shadows for over two decades, but now Antonia's publicizing of his carving had dragged them out into the light. In the days of Old Earth, the conquistador Hernan Cortez scuttled his own ships during the Spanish conquest of Mexico so that his men would have no choice but to conquer or die. The rebellion, Darrow reflected, was in a similar situation now, although they hadn't been the one to burn their own metaphorical boats.  _Whether we were ready for open warfare or not,_ the Reaper thought to himself.  _We have no more options. We conquer, or we die._

It had been a little over six hours since he'd regained his mobility. Sevro, Ragnar, and the surviving Howlers had arrived with Dancer and the remaining Sons of Ares troops an hour after that. They'd lost over a thousand men and women in the Lurcher raid, along with most of their materiel. The two groups had rendezvoused at an Agean police station five hours ago, where the Gray officers, sympathetic to their cause, had provided them with food and beverage while they planned their next move. Three hours after their departure from the Pearl Club, Victra managed to contact the Julii Industries offices on Phobos and reach someone who wasn't a paid stooge for her sister, offering the lowColors in the building promotions, raises, and other benefits in exchange for opening the building's armories for the mobs that were churning even now thousands of kilometers above their heads.

Quicksilver's resistance cells on Phobos managed to coral the riots into some semblance of organization, and Sons of Ares informants under the command of a Red named Rollo were currently laying siege to the Society's main military spire. Surprisingly enough, at least a dozen Golds were helping, pooling in their house resources to replace the loses the Sons had suffered on Mars less than a day before. Two hours ago, they received word from Mustang that the Telemanuses were en route to the surface to evacuate everyone they could, and Darrow told her his plan. An hour later, Quinn, Victra and Roque returned to orbit with a quarter of their new forces. Ragnar took another fourth to the Citadel, where they would rendezvous with Quicksilver's spies and other Sons of Ares informants inside the Martial capitol building in preparation for their stage of the plan.

Shiro left mere minutes ago with a small strike force of veteran Sons for his own mission, while Tactus took one more quarter of their troops to seize the other cities of Mars. The rest stayed with the Reaper. The Telemanus clan brought fresh armor and weapons to the bereaved defenders, and the group painted sling blades and wolves on their armor to mark their allegiance to the Reaper. Shiro couldn't resist adding a multi-color lion underneath the wolf head as a personal touch, however. Seven hours of frantic regrouping and careful preparation had gone into preparing for this moment. And as the coat of blood-red paint on Darrow's new pulse armor dried, and the surgical scars on the backs of his hands stopped hurting as he donned the armor in preparation for his march to war. Everything was ready.

Now, the Reaper carved a wake of silence into the heart of the Agean slums with his bone-white razor on his arm. Sevro flew to the left, proudly wearing the spiked war helm of Ares. Milia followed behind alongside fifty Sons of Ares troops and the rest of their army. The Sons were awkward on their gravBoots, but his friends did what they could coach the lowColors as they went along. Some carried razors, while others preferred pulseFists. But, per Darrow's orders, none of them wore helmets as they flew. He wanted the lowColors of Agea to witness their treason, so that they would feel emboldened by Reds and Oranges and Obsidians wearing the armor of the masters.

The faces were a blur. Thousands of Reds, Oranges, Pinks, Browns, Violets, and Greens, peered out from makeshift shelters, and bombed out buildings in all directions. Neighbors jerked their heads towards the throaty hum of his gravBoots, a they had all heard before flying overhead but never so close. They pointed in his direction as they recognized him, and Darrow recognized his name on their lips. Somewhere, security cameras would be transmitting news to the Jackal or the Securitas antiterrorism apparatus that the Reaper of Mars had finally emerged from hiding. As he coasted into the district square, Darrow prayed silently, willing Eo's spirit to give him strength. There, a massive holographic display broadcasted images of Society programming outward, the harsh neon light of the screen dimmed somewhat by the sunlight overhead. Speakers laughed on cue as blue light played over the Reaper's armor.

Greens from the  _Pax_ focused their helmet cameras on Darrow. The Sons arrayed around him like an honor guard, their eyes smoldering at the surrounding lowColors and their red hair floating like angry torch flames. Milia and Shiro flanked him on either side, floating a hundred meters in the air and surrounded by buildings. Silence gripped the city, broken only by the laugh track of the comedy programing playing on the HC behind them, sick and weird as it cackled out from its speakers. Darrow nodded to the Greens, and they cut the noise, while somewhere in his tower, Quicksilver's hacking teams hijacked every broadcast on the planet and issued commands to secondary datahubs on Earth, Luna, the Asteroid belt, and the moons of Jupiter, so that the Reaper's message would burn across the blackness of space, taking over the web of data that linked mankind.

Quicksilver was proving his allegiance with this broadcast, seizing control of the network he'd spent two and a half years helping the Jackal to build. This would not be like Eo's death, a viral video you had to dig for in the dark spaces of the holoNet. This was a grand roar across the Society, broadcasting on ten billion holos to eighteen billion people.  _They gave these screens to us as chains,_ Darrow thought to himself as he readied himself for what was to come.  _Today, we make them hammers._ Karnus au Bellona had his faults, but Darrow knew that the man was right when he said that all they had was their shout into the wind. Karnus had shouted his own name, and Darrow had learned the folly in that.

Before the Reaper truly began the war that would claim him one way or another, he would make his shout. And it would be something far greater than his own name. Something far greater than a roar of family pride. It would be the dream he had carried and shepherded since he was sixteen years old. On the hologram below, the comedy vanished, and in its place, Eo appeared beneath him, a ghostly giant of the girl he knew. Her face was quiet and pale and angrier than in his dreams. Her hair, dull and stringy, her clothing drab and ragged. But her eyes burned out from her grey surroundings, bright as the blood on her mangled back as she looked up from the whipping box. Her mouth barely seemed to open, just a sliver of space between her lips, but her song bled from her. Her voice as thin and fragile as a spring dream.

Her singing echoed across the metal city louder than she had echoed in that far off city of stone. Her light flicked across the pale faces watching from their cages. These Violets, Pinks, Oranges, and Reds who never knew her in life, but heard her in death. They were silent and sad as, up on the screen, she was walked to the gallows. Darrow closed his eyes as he listened the vain cries of his younger self in the old footage. He looked up to see himself sagging in the hands of the Lykos Grays, feeling like he was back there again as the video reopened an old wound. He remembered the hard-packed dirt on his knees as the world fell out from under him, Augustus speaking with Pliny and Leto as frayed hemp looped around her neck.

Hatred radiated from the faces in the streets, and Darrow could no more stop his late wife's death then than he could do it now. It was as if it was inevitable. On the screen, his wife fell, and he flinched as he heard the rustling over her clothing, the creaking of the rope. He looked down at the hologram, forcing himself to watch as the boy he used to be stumbled forward to wrap his hands with their Red sigils around her kicking legs. He watched himself kiss her ankles and mercifully pull her feet with all his feeble strength. Her Haemanthus fell, and now, he opened his mouth to speak.

"I would have lived in peace," he began. "But my enemies brought me war. My name is Darrow of Lykos. In the last twelve hours, you have all seen my story. It is but an echo of your own. They came to my home and killed my wife. Not for singing a song but for daring to question their reign. For daring to have a voice. For centuries, millions beneath the soil of Mars have been fed lies from cradle to grave. That lie has been revealed to them. Now, they've entered the world you know, and they suffer as you do."

"Man was born free," Darrow continued. "But from the ocean shores to the crater cities of Mercury to the ice waste of Pluto down to the mines of Mars, he is in chains. Chains made of duty, hunger fear. Chains hammered to our necks by a race that we lifted up. A race that we empowered. Not to rule, not to reign, but to lead us from a world torn by war and greed. Instead, they have led us into darkness. They have used the systems of order and prosperity for their own gain. They expect your obedience, ignore your sacrifice, and hoard the prosperity that your hands create. To hold tight to their reign, they forbid our dreams. Saying that a person is only as good as the Color of their eyes, of their Sigils." The Reaper of Mars removed his glove and raised his fist in the air as Eo did before she died. But unlike her, his hands had no Sigils. Mickey had removed them only a few short hours ago as the Sons of Ares prepared for war. Darrow was the first soul in hundreds of years to walk without them. The silence of the slums gave way to sounds of shock and fear.

"But now I stand before you, a man unbound," he went on. "I stand before you, my brothers and sisters, to ask you to join me. To unite behind the Sons of Ares. To take back your cities, your prosperity. Dare to dream of better worlds than these. Slavery is not peace. Freedom is peace. And until we have that, it is our duty to make war. This is no license for savagery or genocide. If a man rapes, you kill him on the spot. If a man murders civilians, high or low, you kill him on the spot. This is war, but you are on the side of good, and that carries a heavy burden. We do not rise for hate or vengeance, for many among Gold have had their eyes opened to our cause but have never had the courage or resources to act. Now, we all rise together for love. For your children. For their future."

"I speak now to Gold," he said. "To the Aureate who rule. I have walked your halls, broken your schools, eaten at your tables, and suffered your gallows. You tried to kill me. You could not. I know your power. I know your pride. And I have seen how you will fall. For seven hundred years, you have ruled over the dominion of man, and this is all you have given us. It is not enough. Today, I declare your rule to be at its end. Your cities are not your cities. Your vessels are not your vessels. Your planets are not your planets. They belong to us, the common trust of man. Now, we take them back. Never mind the darkness you spread, never mind the night you summon, we will rage against it. We will howl and fight till our last breath, not just in the mines of Mars, but on the shores of Venus, on the dunes of Io's sulfur seas, in the glacial valleys of Pluto. We will fight in the towers of Ganymede and the ghettos of Luna and the storm-stricken oceans of Europa. And if we fall, others will take our place, because we are the tide. And we are rising."

As Darrow finished his speech, Sevro slammed his fist against his chest. Once, twice, thumping it rhythmically. The Sons of Ares and the Howlers echoed the beat, their fists pounding their chests. In their buildings of concrete and steel, men and women thumped their fists into the walls until it sounded like a heartbeat rising through the underbelly of the Martian capital; Out through the Gray barracks in each police precinct; Among the Silvers at their trading desks; the Golds in their mansions and luxury clubs. Outward through the streats of Agea, up into the halls of the Citadel, where the Jackal, newly anointed as ArchGovernor, sat on his new throne, surrounded by a sea of bent necks. There, the sound rattled in his hears. There, Darrow knew that the sociopathic patricide heard Eo's heart beat on. And he could not stop it as it went down and down into the mines of Mars, playing on the screens as Reds beat on their tables and the Copper magistrates watched in swelling fear as the miners looked hatefully up through the duroglass that kept them imprisoned.

Eo's heart beat mutinously through the bustling oceanside promenades on the archipelagos of Venus as sailboats floated proudly in the harbor and shopping backs hung in frightened hands while Golds looked to their drives, their gardeners, the men and women who powered their cities. It beat through the hollows and the Hives up on Phobos as lowColors stormed up through the midSector towards the gentrified Needles. It beat through the tin-roofed mess halls of the wheat and soybean latfundia that covered the Great Plains of Earth, where Reds toiled under the huge sun to feed mouths of people they would never meet, in places they would never be.

It beat even along the spine of the empire, raging through the spiked city moon of Luna, passing the Sovereign in her high glass refuge to thunder on down snaking electrical wires and drying clothing lines to the Lost City, where a Pink girl made breakfast after a long night of thankless work. Where a Brown cook leaned away from his stove to hear as grease spattered his apron, and a Gray watched from the window of his patrol skiff as a Violet girl smashed the front door of a Post Office and his datapad summoned him back to the station for emergency riot protocols. And that terrible hope beat inside Darrow's chest, as he knew that the end had begun, and he had finally awoken.

"Break the chains!" He roared. And his people roared back.

"Ragnar," he said into the com. "Bring it down." Down on the screen, the Greens cut to a different feed as the fists thumped and doors rattled. The people saw a distant shot of the Citadel, central command center of all government offices on Mars. From it, the Jackal took the reins of his father's domain. There, Grays and Obsidians would be donning armor under pale lights, rushing through metal halls in tight lines, stocking ammunition belts, and kissing pictures of their loved ones so they could come out into the city and make this heart stop beating. But they would never make it here. Because, as fists pounded even harder into cages, the lights of the Citadel's central tower went black, all its power turned off by Ragnar's troops with access cards provided by Quicksilver's spies.

The Sons of Ares could have bombed the building, but Darrow knew that to win hearts and minds and gain support in this war, they needed a triumph of daring and achievement. Not more destruction. They needed heroes, not an ash city. And so, the people of Agea watched as the Sons of Ares stormed the building under the leadership of Ragnar, using high-clearance access codes to breach the spire with extreme prejudice. The nimbleness and grace the Sons displayed in their new pulseArmor reminded Darrow of the Reds working down in the mines. Darrow was dazzled as more than a thousand welders and former students poured into the vast building like his fleet at the Academy had once tried to infiltrate Karnus' flagship. But unlike that time, nobody was playing for stealth, and the Sons were better in null gravity than he, Tactus, and Victra had been.

Dozens still waiting to enter were ripped to shreds as Grays inside fired railguns through the glass, but the Sons of Ares fired back and poured inward. A ripWing patrol banked in along the outside of the building and slew two dozen soldiers in a strafing run before a Son brought it down with a pulseRocket. Meanwhile, the camera followed Ragnar as he breached a window, entered a hall, and ran full-tilt into a trio of Gold knights. Ragnar flowed through the young knights without stopping, swinging both his razors like scissors and ululating the war cry of his people, followed by a pack of heavily armed laborers and Peerless Scarred. Darrow had told him he wanted the spire. The Reaper had never specified how to take it, and Ragnar had walked off with his arms around Nyla and a Gold from Darrow's army named Dax. Now, the worlds watched a slave become a hero.

"This city belongs to you," Sevro roared to the roiling city. "Rise and take it! Rise, men of Mars. Women of Mars, rise! You bloodydamn bastards! Rise!" Men and women were already pulling themselves from their homes, donning their boots and jackets, pushing themselves towards Darrow and the Sons so that thousands clogged the avenues, crawling over the outside of the buildings. The tide had risen. And Darrow felt a deep terror as he wondered exactly what it would wash away.

"Rape and murder of innocents is punishable by death," Sevro called out to the crowd. "This is war, but you are on the side of good. Remember that, you little shitheads! Protect your brothers! Protect your sisters! All residents of sections 1a through 4c, you are to take the armory. Residents of sections 5c through 3f are to take the water-purification center on…" The biological son of Ares seized control of the battle as the Howlers and Sons dispersed to organize the mob. It was less of an army and more of a battering ram. Many of these people would die. And when they died, more would rise in their place. This was just one district of the Martian capital. The Sons would supply them with weapons, but there wouldn't be nearly enough to go around. Their sword was the press of flesh. Sevro would lead them and spend them. Victra would guide them from Quicksilver's tower up on Phobos, and the city, then hopefully the planet, would fall to the rebellion.

But Darrow wouldn't be there to see it.


	6. Raw War

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2/24/18: 2/24/18: Rewrote this chapter almost entirely from scratch to account for significant changes to my outline for this fic. The fight with Cassius has been given to Mustang now instead of Shiro, although those of you who've read Morning Star should know how that will go. ;)

#### Whitehold

#### Mars

#### March 16th, 2841

 _Forgive me._ Shiro offered a silent prayer as his razor cleaved the hulking, mutated man in half. The Devourer’s unclothed body fell to the side in pieces. Muffled gunfire reverberated through the underground tunnels that supplied electricity to Whitehold, the fortress serving as headquarters for the Martian branch of the Board of Quality Control. On the way to Mars, Ragnar had shared stories of his childhood on the ice of Mars’ southernmost continent. And of the Obsidian tribes, the most feared were the Eaters of Men. Exiles banished from their clans as punishment for consuming human flesh. Most of these cannibals wandered the ice in search of any source of human meat they could find. But some were brought to Whitehold by the board and carved to become mutated sentries in the facility’s lower levels. Shiro knew that these people were not completely innocent. They had chosen to eat their fellow humans, after all. But they’d had no choice in what the board had done to them. And so today, he mourned the loss of every life he took.

On a more positive note, the speed at which the lowColors of Agea responded to Darrow's call to arms was heartwarmingly fast. Despite this, Shiro and his team were encountering stiff resistance in their attempt to sneak into the board’s central command through the back door. While Darrow and Ragnar took Agea and his boyfriend was off laying siege to Corinth and New Thebes, Shiro’s unit was fighting tooth and nail just to make it up into Whitehold itself. The cold metal floor was a sea of red as Devourers tore into rebel troops only to be overwhelmed with pulseFists and razors in retaliation.

The Black Paladin himself was a rainbow amidst the sprays of blood and brain matter. The armor paint on his right arm glittered red as he swung his razor at one of the nude Obsidian guards. Then he turned on his heels and fired the green pulseFist on his left, taking off the head of another Devourer in the process. The blue paint on his right leg chipped as he kicked out at a Devourer’s head, the carved man’s claws leaving scratches along his armor. As the Obsidian stumbled back, he kicked out with his left leg and slammed his yellow-armored heel against the sentry’s knee, the additional weight of the gravBoots breaking it and sending the poor soul tumbling to the ground with a scream. Voltron's chest emblem adorned the front of his black torso armor, while his helmet, along with the armor at his pelvis, knees, and elbows, was painted white.

It was his own way of paying tribute to his friends and his role as a Paladin without openly wearing his old armor. The red wolf of Darrow's army painted on his chest and left shoulder marked him as a member of the Rising to prevent friendly fire, and nobody questioned him when he suddenly changed his appearance. He still hated seeing that shock of white hair and the reminder of what it represented. But after weeks of dying his hair gold for his own survival, he was almost glad to see it. He was going to dye his hair black like he’d been wanting to ever since he’d escaped, but it still felt good to finally be done hiding. He'd been able to survive blending in among Gold high society, but now that they were in open rebellion against the entire hierarchy, there was no more reason to keep dying his hair. Mickey, the Sons of Ares' carver, had removed his sigils along with Darrow's, and he'd washed out the rest of the dye in his hair while the paint on his armor was drying.

He snapped back to reality as the Sons of Ares caught up and surveyed the carnage around him. While he'd been reflecting, he'd carved his way through the cannibalistic sentinels like a hot knife through butter. Blood spatters and brain matter were painted on the walls, floor, and ceiling of the underground tunnel, the Obsidian corpses on the floor coated in bodily fluids. In the span of fifteen minutes, he'd managed to kill ten Lurchers and half a dozen Devourers all by himself. Shiro felt sick to his stomach as he surveyed his own handiwork. The carnage he'd created reminded him uncomfortably of his days in the gladiator arena. When he was expected to do anything and everything that it took to stay alive. But even at his most intense, he'd never done something this brutal before.

 _What have I become?_ He asked himself as he forced himself to look away and take charge. It didn’t matter that he’d nad no choice. It didn’t matter that the Lurchers were all willing employees of the Board of Quality Control, and therefore complicit in thousands of crimes against humanity. The ease with which the Black Paladin resorted to such intense violence disturbed him. Despite Tactus and Mustang’s assurances, he questioned whether he was still worthy to pilot the Black Lion anymore. He forced those doubts out of his mind as the strike team continued through the tunnel until they reached the main elevator shaft. They’d lost a fifth of the strike force to the Obsidian cannibals.

“Does the cipher work?” Shiro asked as one of the team’s Greens, one of the original Sons by the name of Cylax si Nexiti, plugged his tablet into the elevator controls and got to work. Quicksilver had procured access codes for the compound years ago in case the Sons of Ares ever needed to infiltrate the facility. Now it was time to test if they were still useable. The strike team stood in tense silence as Cylax and the other Greens furiously attempted to hack into the building’s mainframe.

“It’s been accepted,” Cylax finally sighed after two minutes as his datapad chirped in affirmation. “I’ve disabled the elevator. It should be a straight shot up to level four.” Shiro nodded, his body tense. Their ultimate objective was to hold the facility and capture all members of the board. But he and Darrow both agreed that it would be good for morale and PR to rescue any prisoners being held at Whitehold. Level 4 was a high security floor, home to the facility’s surgical wing, where most of the board’s interrogations were reportedly held. That meant phase two of their mission just became more urgent.

“We need to hurry,” Shiro replied as he leaped into the elevator shaft and magnetized his gravBoots to the nearest ledge. The rest of the strike team followed suit, with Cylax bringing up the rear. The rebels bounced up the elevator shaft from one ledge to another like a game of pinball. When they reached the fourth floor, they slowly ground the doors open and fired on the security guards. Shiro didn’t even flinch as he shot one of the Grays in the head with his pulseFist. Another was felled by Wulfgar, one of the Obsidians given a razor by Darrow during the Rain three weeks ago. Blood sprayed everywhere as the two dead guards dropped to the ground before they could call for help. Shiro stayed by the doors watching

The halls were silent as Shiro and two dozen Sons of Ares sprinted through the corridor. The antiseptic smell of the facility felt unnatural and wrong as Shiro took cover behind a wall and discreetly surveyed the security station. After taking stock of the problem and formulating a plan, the rebels charged into action. The guard station erupted into an explosion of blood and bone fragments as pulseFist and scorcher blasts flooded into the room. Glass shattered and blood arced through the air as the off-duty security forces fell to the rebel assault. The Sons of Ares advanced through the halls of Whitehold, taking down security forces as they went. They reached a computer terminal without raising any alarms, and Cylax got to work.

Cylax had been to Whitehold before, accompanying Fitchner on a failed attempt to rescue the man’s wife from the Board of Quality Control before her untimely demise. This gave the rebel forces an advantage in that they knew exactly where they were going, and Nexiti knew how to get around the lockdown. Fire suppression foam sprayed down from the ceiling, and Fennix, another veteran of the Sons, took down the startled Yellows as the strike force entered the surgical wing. Shiro whipped out his Razor and decapitated a security guard as they passed. The air was a cacophony of sound as security alerts blended in with the fire arm.

 _“Security breach! Security breach!”_ the PA system announced in the clipped dialect of a Green. _“All security personnel to level 4! All personnel are to stay in secure areas. This is not a drill.”_ More security forces emerged to confront the rebels after that, only to be caught off guard by the sheer number of intruders and felled quickly.

“It appears we’ve lost the element of surprise,” Wulfgar remarked as he took down another enemy soldier.

“We wouldn’t have been able to rely on it for long anyway,” Shiro commented as Fennix pistol whipped a Yellow surgeon emerging from a nearby corridor. The time traveler turned to the hacker. “Have you found Prefect Vardan?” The other man nodded. Arturius au Vardan was, chief officer of the Martian branch of the Board of Quality Control. Which meant that to get the security codes to unlock all Whitehold’s secrets and successfully take the facility, he was their main target. The fact that the man was wanted alive by Sevro for being the one to order his mother’s execution was a bonus.

“He’s in the middle of an interrogation,” Nexiti answered. “Looks like they’ve finished with the interrogation and their moving on to dissecting the boy.” The Green pulled up the security footage on his datapad as they ran and angled it so that Shiro could see a small, dark-clothed form strapped to the operating table. Cylax switched cameras to give the Paladin a better view of the prisoner. Shiro’s face paled. The man – boy, really – looked barely older than eighteen. His clothing had been partially stripped away, showing a myriad of bruises on his torso. The Black Paladin didn’t know when the boy had received those bruises, but he was _not_ going to let anyone else get ripped apart by the board.

“We’ll split up from here,” Shiro ordered as the group came to another intersection. “Cylax, Wulfgar, take half the platoon and carry on with the mission. Get to the security station and take control of the building. Fenix and the rest will come with me and rescue the kid.” The Sons of Ares, both veteran soldiers and the fresh recruits from Agea, nodded obediently. The lowColors still didn’t trust this man who’d appeared to be Gold mere hours before. But the Reaper did, so they could give him a chance. Cylax’s group broke off in the direction of the compound’s security hub. Shiro and Fenix continued onward, accompanied by half their strike force. Also in their group included a former member of Harmony’s splinter faction named Evey. The Pink had been horrified by Harmony’s betrayal, and was doing her best to make amends for breaking away from the Sons.

They reached the surgical theater minutes later. The first thing Shiro caught sight of was a team of four Yellows inches away from cutting the helpless kid open. Two blasts from his pulseFist killed them all in as many seconds. He dialed up the strength of the gravFist on his right arm and punched au Vardan in the face, breaking the man’s nose and knocking him unconscious. With the room secure, he breathed a sigh of relief as he looked down at the teen strapped to the table. After spending so much time taking lives, it felt good – cathartic, even – to actually save one for once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cylax, Fenix, Whitehold, and Arturius are from the Sons of Ares comic miniseries set 20 years before the beginning of Golden Son. I wanted to incorporate some of the characters into this fic, and when I was doing my re-writes I realized that the story I was now working on would make more sense to have Shiro going into battle elsewhere on Mars while Darrow, Sevro, and Ragnar were in Agea. Sevro's aunt Ryanna will definitely be showing up later on, too.


	7. The Last Eagle

####  _Deja Thoris_

#### Martian Orbit

#### March 16 th, 2841

Mustang took a deep breath to steady herself as she led troops of all colors through the corridors of her ship. Gunfire and pulseRifle blasts echoed through the halls as she stepped into the hangar bay to find an assault shuttle marked with Praetorian colors landing in the bay, having slipped past the ship’s railguns. Mustang grimaced. _Just our luck we get boarded right as the battle is beginning to wind down._ The rebel fleet held naval supremacy over the fourth planet, and the Sons of Ares had miraculously managed to seize control of sixty-five percent of the planet's surface in a matter of hours. Only three hundred cities, various Gold estates, and the Arctic and Antarctic landmasses remained unconquered, while all that remained of the Sovereign's forces had clustered themselves around Deimos.

The enemy fleet had been broken, Gold families fleeing for the Core with their personal warships as the tide of battle began to turn against them. With only a few die-hard loyalists protecting the Martian moon, the rebel fleet was swooping in to claim it for themselves. While Sons of Ares troops surged across the surface of Deimos, Mustang received confirmation that the Sovereign herself was ensconced aboard her brother’s flagship. She and Darrow had suspected that Octavia never left Mars and had been hiding among the Augustus fleet with Adrius' help. Rebel boarding parties sending footage of Praetorians aboard the _Invictus_ only confirmed those suspicions.

Mustang had a few ideas for how to get into the Sovereign’s presence, and while she hadn’t planned for the boarding shuttle, it was just what she needed. When he learned what she was planning, Sevro called to give her the code phrases to activate Sons of Ares sleeper agents in the Gray legions. But first, they needed to take out this boarding party. Kavax's youngest daughter, Thraxa, stood to her left, accompanied by half a dozen Golds, six Lurchers, and three Obsidians. Mustang had quickly freed the slave knights owned by her house when the battle first began, and since Ragnar had been spreading the truth of Gold's mortality among the other Stained for weeks, several of the newly freed slaves were eager to fight to keep their freedom.

On the other side of the group stood a Sons of Ares unit dubbed "The Pitvipers", a newly formed, motley collection of hardasses specializing in sabotage and thievery. Half of them were ex-Helldivers, and the rest were a spattering of other useful lowColors given impromptu combat training before being thrown into battle. There was something about the Red in charge of the group that struck Mustang as familiar, but she didn't have the time to dwell on it right now. Tactical feeds scrolled across her helmet display, providing real-time updates for combat on the ground and in space. Rebel forces had just taken the port city of Ismenia, weakening her brother's hold over the northern continent, Arabia Terra.

"Remember," the last daughter of House Augustus told her troops. "We are all here today because we chose to stand with the Reaper. We believe in the cause, and today, that is all that matters. We don’t fight for glory or pride, or vengeance. We fight for the freedom of humanity. Register?"

"Register," the Golds and Obsididians replied instinctively.

"Break the chains," she finished, and the strike force roared in answer. As the shuttle’s engines powered down, Mustang input commands on her datapad to broadcast the activation signal for the sleeper agents Fitchner had recruited from the legions. She watched the data flow in as the battle on Mars's surface continued to swing in their favor. Rebel forces had just captured the coastal city of Ishtar. That brought the total number of rebel held cities to seven hundred fifty. Rebel forces had captured a quarter of Deimos’ surface. Defenses on the moon were weakening as Sons of Ares spies dropped their cover and turned on their platoons, with orders to cause as much confusion and mayhem as possible while they retreated to friendly territory.

With a hiss, the boarding door of the enemy craft finally opened, and twelve Gray legionnaires stormed out, accompanied by the familiar face Cassius au Bellona. The Bellona heir looked terrified as he looked at Mustang, and she felt a flash of guilt as she remembered how genuine the man’s feelings for her had been. Tech festooned the legionnaires' black combat gear, and Mustang knew from experience that every one of these soldiers had optic implants in the eyes for thermal vision and the reading of battle maps. Under their skin, they'd have more embedded tech to help them hunt Golds and Obsidians. But that was not what angered Mustang about her opponents. Each of them had the tattoo of a _XIII_ clutched by a moving sea dragon staining their neck, little heaps of ash at the base of the Roman numeral.

These were not ordinary soldiers. These were members of Legio XIII Dracones, the Ash Lord's favored Praetorian legion. And they were here on Mars, under the command of Grimmus' daughter. Known to civilians simply as dragoons, they were a whole independent army of thirty thousand of the Society's best troops chosen by Aja to be the Sovereign's hand away from Luna. Each of them hated lowColors with a marrow-deep racism even Golds could not match. _Great, more fanatics._ Mustang remarked to herself dryly. _Just what we needed._ Nevertheless, she had already transmitted the activation signal for Fitchner's spies. Which meant that evidently not everyone in the thirteenth legion was as fanatic as they appeared to be.

Before either side could open fire, the front half of a dragoon centurion's forehead came off with a pop, and something metal hit the wall of the hangar. Mustang stared for a moment as she calculated which of the Grays had fired the shot. Blood sprayed into the air from the heads of the nearest dragoons with another series of pops. Behind the enemy legionnaires, a nutcracker-jawed woman casually strolled through the ranks of her platoon, shooting the Loyalist soldiers point blank in the backs of their heads. The rest of the enemy Grays scrambled to pull their files up, unsure of who to fire on. But few of them were even able to utter curses before a second Gray double-tapped five of them from the back of their formation with an old-fashioned gunpowder slug shooter, a silencer on the barrel to keep it cool and quiet. Cassius whirled out of the way of gunfire, but pulseRifle fire from the Sons of Ares kept him from retaliating.

"Clear," the woman said.

"Plus two," the man replied, putting a boot down on the chest of one of the Grays still alive after the massacre. The other man stared up at him, bleeding from under the jaw.

"Trigg…" the legionnaire tried to protest.

"Ares sends his regards, motherfucker," the man replied, shooting his former comrade between the eyes, just under the brim of the soldier's tactical helmet. The man – Trigg, apparently – spun the slug shooter in his hand, blowing smoke from the end before sheathing it in a leg holster. With the last of the enemy troops dead, the two Grays turned their weapons on the Morning Knight and joined in firing on Cassius’ pulseShields. Eventually, the shields began to flicker red. Mustang watched as his shields overloaded and Cassius ducked behind a stack of munitions crates. They couldn’t use ranged weapons now without blowing up the hangar. The only way to take him out was to use ionBlades and razors. But the Obsidians were no match for an Olympic Knight, and only Mustang and Thraxa had any real experience fighting with razors.

As she ran through her options, an idea occurred to her, and she typed up a message to Darrow and Sevro, outlining the details as she mentally reworked her plan and worked out the flaws and risks. If they could get proof that the Sovereign was responsible for his family’s death, she might be able to convince him to give them intel. Perhaps even use his Olympic security codes to get inside Octavia’s defenses. Mustang acted quickly. While the rest of her troops closed in to cut off Cassius’ escape routes, she circled around until she was standing directly in front of him. She swapped razors with one of the Golds in the group who had a thinner model, more like a fencer’s blade. That was just what she needed.

“Surrender Cassius,” she shouted, as she hefted the razor behind her head, the blade balanced delicately in her fingers to avoid cutting herself. “Or I will put you down.”

“No,” Cassius said, his face betraying the pain he was trying to mask in his voice. “You would…”

Mustang hurled the razor like a javelin, the hardened sword punching through the frot of his throat and out the back of his neck. There was no spray of blood, only a wet, meaty gurgle. He flopped back, gasping and hacking as he hit the ground hard. His feet kicked and he hissed for breath as he clutched the hilt of the heated blade. As soon as he dropped down she gave orders for Thraxa and the other Golds to take him to the medbay. It would take a few hours for him to recover, but Mustang knew he would live, even though she’d only missed his jugular by a centimeter at most.

As the rest of the strike squad kept their guard up, the two dragoons holstered their weapons as they approached the ship’s defenders. Mustang stepped forward to greet the two.

"Name's Holiday ti Nakamura," the woman introduced herself. "That's Trigg, my baby brother." The woman raised a scar-notched eyebrow. "We all know who you are, but the question I want to know is why a Gold would side with the Sons of Ares over her own Color. Especially the daughter of the man who killed Persephone." Mustang let out an exasperated sigh. She had expected this from the lowColors on Mars, but that didn't mean she enjoyed being questioned about her motives.

"Do you honestly think I would be willing to cast aside everything I know for this rebellion if I didn't believe in the cause? The Reformers have been working to improve the situation of lower Colors for decades, but Darrow's shown me that open rebellion has always been inevitable."

"Not saying you don't believe in our motivation, princess," Holiday remarked snidely. "But you didn't answer my question. You believed in the cause but you could have stayed in politics and tried to legislate and negotiate to get what you want. Why throw all your comfort away for the Reaper?" Mustang groaned, not wanting to share details of her personal life with a relative stranger but having no choice if she wanted to convince the older woman of her intentions.

"Because I love him," she retorted. "Did you really think that our engagement was just a show for the sake of politics?" Holiday smiled and offered the Gold a handshake.

"Are you happy now?" Mustang asked.

"I'm satisfied," Holiday replied. "Sorry for putting you on the spot like that, luv. Wanted to make sure Trigg and I hadn't just blown our covers for someone who was going to jump ship and sell us out when the going got tough." Mustang nodded. She understood the legionnaire's reasoning, even if she didn't enjoy the suspicion. Once they finished cleaning and re-loading their weapons, the Nakamura siblings fell in line with the rest of the strike team and synced their comms to the correct frequency.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Background Info:**  
>  _Morning Star_ is vague about how long Trigg and Harmony have been with the Sons of Ares, so for the sake of this story, I'm assuming that they've been undercover at least since the middle of Golden Son. It makes sense in a way. Fitchner was the Rage Knight, so it makes sense that he would have access to the Thirteenth Legion and use that opportunity to recruit new sleeper agents for the Sons.


	8. Reality

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update 3/14/18: Completely rewrote Keith's first chapter from scratch on account of major rewrites to the plot.

In retrospect, piloting his ship on a suicide run that had no guarantee of working was not one of Keith’s best ideas. Sure, things had been too hectic at the time for him to think of any other ideas, but that didn’t change the fact that he’d been so quick to sacrifice his own life for what might have been nothing. Could still have been for nothing. He still didn’t know if it had worked or not. Had he broken through the shield? Was Voltron okay? What had happened to the other rebels? How did he survive? Or did he even survive at all?

That last thought chilled him, but it was quickly silenced when he realized that he could dimly feel himself being moved. It was hard to tell what was going on around him. His vision was hazy, his hearing muffled. _I guess Matt managed to get me aboard a ship before I froze in the vacuum,_ Keith thought to himself, exhaling in relief. _They’ll be putting me in a cryo-pod soon._ Since he couldn’t make out what was happening around him, the only thing left for him to occupy his time was think. And unfortunately, that was the last thing he wanted to do right now.

Keith didn’t regret taking a leave of absence from the team to train with the Blade of Marmora. It was the only way he could learn more about his Galran heritage. Maybe find out how far back in his family tree it was. From the whole mindscape in the Trials of Marmora, it seemed that his Galra DNA came from his mother’s side of the family. Whether that mean his mom was Galra or one of his grandparents, or great-grandparents, or someone further up his family tree was still unclear. But training with Kolivan and the Blades was the only way he could find out. He just wished that he’d left the Castle of Lions under better circumstances.

Shiro had been different ever since they’d found him drifting in space in a lone Galra fighter. He wasn’t as cheerful as he was before, and he had become more inflexible since he came back. Keith didn’t know whether this was a result of the stress of being in an intergalactic war, the trauma of being experimented on by the Empire for the second time, or a combination of the two, but something had changed.

When Pidge wanted to leave the team to track down her dad and her brother, Shiro had said “people have to want to be a part of this team. It can’t be forced.” But ever since he’d come back, Shiro had done nothing but try to force Keith into a role he’d already made clear he didn’t want. They’d talked about everything that had happened at the Blade of Marmora base before the team split up to prepare for their battle with Zarkon. Shiro had been watching his trial with Kolivan. Had seen his greatest fears against his will. He didn’t blame Shiro for that. It’s not like either of them had expected the simulation to get so personal. But after that conversation Shiro stopped bringing up the possibility of him disappearing again or Keith leading Voltron.

But then when he came back he just kept pushing the issue. Keith would be lying to himself if the constant pressure from Shiro wasn’t part of why he decided to leave the team. He didn’t want to lead Voltron. He’d only done it while Shiro was gone out of necessity, and he wanted nothing more than to go back to piloting Red like he used to. But it wasn’t fair to Lance or Allura for him to shuffle everyone back around when they were just getting the hang of their new positions.

Keith couldn’t tell where he was. Everything around him was blurry and out of focus, all sound muffled as if someone had put a bag over his head. He could feel the hard metal surface on his back carrying him slowly forward? Was he on some sort of space gurney? He couldn’t really be sure. It was getting harder to think as time went on. He could feel himself slipping away, even as he fought the urge to close his eyes and rest. It helped that the straps keeping him secured to whatever this was dug into his skin. It gave him something to focus on. There was something wrong with this scenario, but his mind was too clouded to put his finger on what it was.

Shapes began to move around him, accompanied by muffled noises he was too groggy to identity and bright flashes that made his head hurt. _Maybe… this really is… the end…_ Keith thought to himself. _At least… hopefully… the team… survived… I can… accept this… if they…  made it out…_ Giving into the urge to rest, his eyelids drooped closed. The last thing he saw was a patch of white that looked familiar somehow. As his mind started to drift off, he felt the straps around his arms and legs begin undone, the muffled sound of voices talking over his probably-soon-to-be dead body. Someone put something soft in his mouth. It felt like leather. Next there was a sharp pain in his chest, like someone was giving him an injection right into his heart.

That was when pain exploded through his body. His eyes snapped back open and he bolted upright. Keith screamed, but with the glove in his mouth it only came out as a gurgle. His veins felt like they were full of fire instead of blood, his heart pounding like a piston. The Paladin looked down, expecting to see his heart jumping out of his chest like a cartoon character. He could practically feel every muscle, every cell in his body pulsing with kinetic energy. A pair of firm hands gripped his shoulder as he dry-heaved over the side of the gurney. He clawed at his chest, panting and spitting bile. He let out a string of curses he’d picked up from other Blades that would have broken even Kolivan’s seemingly limitless patience.

“Keith,” a voice said. “Are you okay?” The Paladin’s eyes widened. Now that he was coherent again, he recognized that voice. He turned his head and saw his closest friend standing behind him with one hand resting on his shoulder. But Shiro looked differently than he had the last time they’d seen each other. His bangs were noticeably longer than he’d cut them after Keith had found him dying in a Galra fighter in the middle of deep space. In fact, they were about as the same length they had been when the team had fought Zarkon. And Shiro wasn’t wearing his Paladin armor. Instead, he was dressed in a kind of armor that made him look like a high-tech version of a knight from the middle ages, his armor painted in the familiar colors of Voltron.  

“What… was… that?” he gasped, his chest heaving as he sucked in air. The concerned look on Shiro’s face melted into one of sympathy.

“Spies called it snakebite,” the Black Paladin replied. “That was a half-dose, so it should last at least an hour.”

“How… are… what…” Keith stammered, a thousand different questions burning in his mind. How long had he been out? Why wasn’t Shiro in his Paladin armor? How did Keith survive the explosion? Why was there a large red wolf painted on the front of Shiro’s armor? What was going on?

“Keith,” Shiro began. “I promise, I’ll explain later. But right now, we need to move. Can you walk?” Keith gingerly slid himself off the gurney, keeping his hand on it for balance as his feet hit the ground. His legs were sore, but they still held his weight.

“I think so,” he answered. It hurt when he tried to bend his knees, so he limped around to the other side of the gurney he’d been strapped to. As he moved, he looked around the room. Four bodies littered the floor, sprays of blood and what he guessed were chunks of brain matter trailing out from where their heads were supposed to be. A gray-haired soldier around his height was handcuffing a tall man with golden hair too shiny and metallic looking to be considered blonde who looked to be unconscious. The soldier relieved the prisoner of his boots and pulled something off the man’s arm, then gestured for Keith to put both on. The former Red Paladin was still thoroughly confused, but complied when Shiro nodded in confirmation. Another figure, a woman who looked around Keith’s age, took off her helmet to reveal long pink hair as she turned to Shiro.

“Commander,” she interjected. “Nexiti’s secured the command center. Bloodydamn board just deployed a Lurcher squad.” Keith blinked at the unfamiliar terms.

“Gorydamnit,” Shiro cursed. He glanced back at Keith, and the Red Paladin could see just how worried his friend was. “Let’s get moving then.” The woman nodded, and went to help the other soldier remove their prisoner from the room. As he glanced around, Keith realized that the room they were in was a surgical theater. A chill ran down his spine as he realized that Shiro had just saved him from being dissected. As they headed for the door, Shiro took Keith’s com and synced it to his own.

“Stay close to me,” Shiro said firmly, his voice barely more than a whisper, but still the familiar commanding tone of the Black Paladin. “And whatever you do, keep your mask on until I tell you it’s safe to take it off. We don’t want to have anyone asking questions we can’t answer.” Keith was still confused by the entire situation, but he nodded, and activated the mask in his Marmora uniform. He wasn’t sure he wanted people seeing his face right now either. As the doors to the operating room closed behind them, Keith was surprised to find half a battalion of soldiers waiting for them out in the hall. Most of them wore combat gear like the woman and the gray-haired man, but a few wore the same style of armor that Shiro had.

Everyone present appeared to be, if not human, then from species that shared a close enough resemblance to be indistinguishable at first glance. There were two things that stood out to Keith and made him unsure of which option was more likely. The first was the variety of hair colors. He saw pink, white, green, orange, red, and the occasional flash of purple. The second thing was the differences in height. The soldiers with green, purple, orange, and gray hair were all around his height or taller. The red and pink haired ones were even shorter. And then there were towering hulks the size of Galra soldiers and as muscular as Sendak. _Where exactly are we, Shiro?_ He wondered silently as the older man grabbed the thin casing the gray-haired soldier had put on his arm. The clear surface lit up with the glow of a holographic screen, and Shiro tapped out a few commands, muttering something about “syncing the datapad with the boots.” Once he appeared to be satisfied, Shiro let go of Keith’s arm and turned to address the troops.

“Alright,” he said, voice and posture shifting witching to what Matt had once jokingly called Commander Mode. “Let’s move out.” And with that, the armored strike force moved down the corridor. Keith ran to keep pace with his friend. As they ran, his nose took in the antiseptic sterility of whatever this place was. It gave off an atmosphere of artificial death, as if nothing natural happened here. Keith wasn’t sure he wanted to find out if that was an accurate assessment.

His mind whirled with possible explanations to his current circumstance. He quickly dismissed the idea of travelling to another reality. Even if the explosion had been powerful enough to tear a hole in the fabric of the universe, Voltron and Lotor’s comet ships were the only vessels powerful enough to survive the journey. A lone Galra fighter would have been incinerated, so the fact that he was still alive ruled out that possibility. He could have been captured by the Galra and experimented on for months, long enough for Shiro’s hair to grow back out, but that still didn’t explain anything he was seeing now. His captors had appeared human, not Galra. And this facility lacked the pink and purple color scheme of the empire.

He pushed those thoughts out of his mind. Speculation could wait until they were somewhere Shiro wasn’t expecting them to get shot at any moment. The group’s movement slowed as three armored men with gold triangles on their shoulders sprinted out into the corridor. Keith unsheathed his knife, but before he could do anything, Shiro raised his arm and fired twice with what looked like Iron Man’s repulsor blasts from the Marvel movies. A second later, two headless corpses toppled to the ground as blood sprayed out behind them. Keith barely had time to blink before Shiro charged forward, pulling out a whip in his hand.

By the time Keith blinked, the whip had become a blade, and Shiro decapitated the man so cleanly Keith didn’t even notice until the man’s head toppled to the floor. He looked up, shock from his body language despite the mask covering his face. _What happened to you, Shiro?_ His silent gesture asked. Shiro looked like he was going to be sick, his face awash with regret. An instant later, he schooled his expression into a stoic mask. Keith felt an uncomfortable pit in his stomach at the realization of just how brutal his friend could be. He’d heard about Shiro’s time in the gladiator arena. He knew in his head that Shiro had sometimes been forced to kill his opponents to survive.  But seeing that ferocity in person was another thing entirely.

Keith knew that the things Shiro had done during his year in captivity terrified the older man, and Shiro had somehow been forced into an environment where he had to slip back into the kill-or-be-killed mindset of The Champion to survive. Keith could only imagine how much self-deprecation Shiro was subjecting himself to over it. But he knew that Shiro was ashamed that he had been there to witness it. So, Keith swallowed his discomfort and ran to catch up with Shiro as the soldiers behind him resumed their race through the corridors to this unknown building.

He put a hand on Shiro’s shoulder, increasing his speed to keep pace. Shiro looked back and nodded in acknowledgement, appreciative of the gesture. A few minutes later, they stopped in front of an elevator. The pink-haired woman, Evey, went in first, cramming a third of the troops with them into the lift. As they waited, Keith noticed a light start flashing on Shiro’s arm as aholographic screen popped up on the latter’s gauntlets. Shiro cursed and nodded to Keith before a helmet slithered out of his armor.

“Commander,” a man’s voice echoed in Keith’s ear. “You have an incoming transmission from Praetor Julii.” Keith bit back the urge to ask what was going on. Shiro knew more than he did, and the whole point of syncing their coms was so Keith wouldn’t be completely confused by the situation. Keith didn’t know who Praetor Julii was, but Shiro clearly did.

“Put her through.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I first started writing Hic Sunt Leones, I had a lot of vague ideas for how Shiro would be reunited with Team Voltron. 
> 
> Back when the show only had two seasons, these ideas primarily involved them arriving on Mars in the middle of this planet wide rebellion and the forces loyal to the Sovereign attempting to trick them into helping destroy the resistance, only for the Paladins to turn around and support the rebellion when they realized Shiro was part of it. They would have deliberately gone to the future after Slav used some made up science stuff to determine what happened to Shiro.
> 
> Once Season 3 came out and the clone theory began to circulate, my ideas shifted towards everyone and Clone!Shiro ending up in the future after a visit to a planet full of aliens with precognition. They'd end up in the asteroid belt among The Jackal's fleet, and again the Gold loyalists would try to trick the Paladins into helping, and they'd join the Rising instead once they figured out about Real!Shiro. 
> 
> And after Season 4, I thought it would be interesting if the combined energies of Haggar's warship shields and the lasers on Lotor's Sincline ship tore open a rift in time and space, throwing Keith into the Red Rising era. I really liked this idea, so I've been waiting to see if Season 5 revealed the Clone or Operation Kuron before I moved forward with this story, as well as more lore and characters from Iron Gold. 
> 
> Now that both are out, I'm only going to re-write Darrow's third chapter and then the story will move forward.


	9. My People

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 3/16/18: As of today, all of my rewrites for both Hic Sunt Leones and Omnis Vir Lupus are 100% complete. I'm moving forward with this story again, so you can expect a brand new chapter sometime in the next two weeks. Sorry the wait was so long, but inspiration struck, and I needed to map out how this fic would end before I could move forward.

#### Agea

#### Mars

#### March 16th, 2841

The Citadel medBay was past its maximum capaticity. To treat patients, every empty space between hospital beds was filled with rows of Sun Industries gurneys and additional makeshift beds. The air was filled with coughs and solemn whispers as Red, Pink, and Yellow nurses in scrubs moved through the beds checking the patients. The back of the main room had been converted into a burn ward, separated from the rest of the patients by hastily assembled containment walls. He could hear a woman screaming from the other side of the plastic, fighting a nurse trying to give her an injection. Two more nurses rushed to help subdue her. It was a harsh reminder that the violence of war was not confined to the battlefield.

Darrow felt swallowed by the sterile sadness of the medical center. There was no gore. No blood dripping on the floor. But this was the aftermath of his call to arms. Even now, the casualties continued to mount up. They had taken Agea, but Mars still burned around them. Shiro was laying siege to Whitehold. Tactus had just taken New Thebes and was pushing onward toward Corinth, where loyalist Golds surged upward in their private yachts to escape the conflict. But even if they took Mars today, the revolution was only just beginning. And Darrow knew in his heart that millions more would die by the time it was over. And even more would suffer like the wounded here in Agea.

As he walked through the rows of beds, his datapad beeped with an incoming message. _Lykos evacuated. Family safe. Minimal casualties,_ the tactical update reported. Darrow breathed a sigh of relief. The tone was patented Julii, but he was grateful to Victra for confirming that his mother, siblings, nieces, and nephews had made it out safely. He’d been worried ever since Quicksilver’s spies had reported the Jackal’s plans to gas the whole mine with Achlys-9. It was a relief to know that the Sons of Ares had managed to evacuate in time. As he made his way back towards Ragnar, another message came in reporting that Tactus had secured Cyprio, on the Aventine Peninsula north of New Thebes, while the Telemanus forces fought to secure Yorkton, the city beneath which wound the tunnels of Darrow’s childhood home.

With the fear for his family’s safety satisfied, he turned his attention back to the hospital. Even with a Carver as good as Mickey, and medical supplies being shuttled over from Sun Industries buildings, the Rising still didn’t have enough resources to mend these people. The wounded stared up at the lavish ceiling wondering what their lives will be like now. That was what best described the feeling of this room. Not the trauma of flesh, but of lives and dreams interrupted. Darrow wanted to retreat from the room, but Ragnar nudged him forward to the edge of a young man’s bed. The boy had watched as Darrow came in, his hair short, face plump and awkward with a prominent underbite.

“What’s what?” Darrow asked, his voice remembering the flavor of the mine. With the battle winding down, his inner circle agreed that it would be good for morale if he went to a few of the field hospitals in Agea and visited the wounded. Ragnar evidently felt that the best thing for him to do would be to strike up conversation. Darrow was nervous as he sat down on an empty chair propped up next to the bed. These were his people, and he felt like a stranger to them. _So as Shiro likes to say,_ he thought to himself as he focused on the young man in front of him. _Here goes nothing._

“Just dancin’ time away, hear?” the younger man answered with a shrug. The Reaper could certainly understand that. He’d spent days during and after his carving stuck in Mickey’s workshop or the Sons of Ares’ penthouse hideout with nothing to do.

“I hear,” Darrow replied, extending a hand. “Darrow… of Lykos.”

“We know,” the other man said as he took Darrow’s hand. His hands were so small that he couldn’t even wrap his fingers around the Reaper’s. He chuckled at the ridiculousness of it. “Vanno of Karos.”

“Night or day?” Darrow asked.

“Dayshift, you pigger,” Vanno retorted. “I look like some saggy-faced night digger?”

“Well, you never know these days…” Darrow remarked jokingly.

“True enough,” Vanno replied. “I’m Omicron. Third drillboy, second line.”

“So that was your chaff I’d be dodging deep,” Darrow commented.

“Helldivers,” Vanno grinned as he made a lewd motion with his hands. “Always loking themselves in the eye. Someone’s gotta teach you to look up.” The two laughed. After all these years, it felt good to slip back into the familiar rhythm of competitiveness in the mines.

“How much did it hurt?” he asked, nodding to the Reaper. At first Darrow though Vanno was referring to the injuries he’d sustained in the battle. But then he realized the Red was referring to his hands, where the Sigils used to be. _He wants to know about my first Carving,_ the Reaper realized as he unveiled his hands from his sweater.

“Manic shit, that,” Vanno commented, flicking where the skin grafts were with his finger. Darrow looked around and realized that it wasn’t just Vanno watching him. Everyone was. Even through the open doors to the burn unit Reds were pushing themselves of their beds to look at him. They couldn’t see the fear inside him. They only saw what they wanted to. Darrow glanced at Ragnar, but the giant was busy speaking to an injured Obsidian. There was no backing out of this now. He had no other choice but to go through with it.

“How much did it hurt?” Darrow repeated. “Well, imagine falling into a clawDrill, Vanno. A centimeter at a tme. First goes the skin. Then bone. Easy stuff.” Vanno whistled and looked down at his missing legs with a tired, almost bored expression.

“Didn’t even feel this,” the Son of Ares remarked. “My suit injected just enough hydrophone to knock out one of them,” he paused and nodded to Ragnar, then drew air through his teeth. “At least I still got my prick.”

“Ask him,” a man on the neighboring bed urged. “Vanno…”

“Shut up,” Vanno sighed before turning his attention back to Darrow. “Boys have been wondering’. Did you get to keep it?”

“Keep what?” the Reaper asked. There were a lot of body parts spliced and replaced during his carving. There wasn’t any particular one he could remember Mickey leaving behind.

“It,” Vanno repeated, his eyes pointing towards Darrow’s groin. “Or did they… you know… make it proportionate?” _Oh_ , Darrow realized. He bit back a blush as his mind recalled making love to Mustang two weeks ago. The reminder of her pregnancy helped him keep a straight face. He honestly had no way of knowing how his carving would affect their child. Would the baby have traces of Red in his genes? Or had Mickey carved him so thoroughly that even his sperm was Gold? Thinking about their future child only made Darrow worried about his ability to be a father amid all this chaos.

He forced his own worries out of his mind. These people needed to see him humanized, but that didn’t mean they needed to see behind the mask of The Reaper. They needed to believe in the legend. If they saw how terrified he was underneath, morale would crumble. So, for now, he could put aside his worries and humor them.

“You really want to know?” Darrow asked, making sure the wounded soldiers were serious about this.

“I mean…” Vanno stammered. “Not for personal reasons. But I’ve got money riding on it.”

“Well,” Darrow began, leaning forward seriously as Vanno and his nearby bedmates leaned in as well. _Shiro’s right,_ he thought as he let the suspense build up. I really do have a flair for being dramatic. “If you really want to know, you should ask your mother.”

Vanno stared at him intensely, then exploded into laughter. The man’s bedmates laughed and spread the joke to the far edges of the room. And in that moment, the mood shifted. Amusement and crude jokes cut through the suffocating sterility. It filled Darrow with energy to see the shifting tide and realize that it was all because of a single laugh. Instead of retreating from the eyes of his people, Darrow moved away from Ragnar down the lines of cots to mingle more with the injured, to thank them, to ask where they were from and learn their names. This was where Darrow thanked whatever deities existed that he had a good memory.

 _Forget a man’s name and he’ll forgive you,_ he thought to himself. _Remember it, and he’ll defend you forever._ Most of the wounded called him sir or Reaper. He wanted to correct them and tell them to call him Darrow. But he knew the value of respect, of distance between men and leader. Because even though Darrow was laughing with them, even though they were helping him stay steady emotionally in the face of the chaos happening around him, there were not his friends. They were not his family. At least, not yet. Not until they had that luxury. For now, they were his soldiers, and they needed him as much as he needed them. He was their Reaper, but like he had told Fitchner and Dancer about visiting Lykos, he needed to remind himself who he was fighting for.

Ragnar flashed him an ungainly grin, pleased to see the Reaper smiling and laughing with the soldiers. Darrow had never been a man of joy or a man of war, or an island in a storm. He had never been an absolute like Lorn. That was only what he’d pretended to be. Darrow was and always would be a man who was made complete by those around him. He felt stronger now than he had before he arrived here fatigued from battle. He had not felt this kind of strength in so long. It wasn’t only that he was loved, but that they believed in him. Not the false idol he’d built in the service of Augustus, but the man beneath. Lykos might be gone. Eo might be silent. Mustang and their friends scattered across the planet as they fought for the very survival of this rebellion. But after four years undercover, he felt his soul trickling back into him as he realized he was finally home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I decided to re-write this fic, I knew I wanted to include Darrow's scene of mingling with the wounded Sons of Ares in somewhere, and given what I've come up with later on down the road, I felt like this would be the best place to put it. I've taken out the part of Darrow and Ragnar going to liberate the Obsidians, since it clashes with what I've got cooked up for the rest of the fic.


	10. The Cavalry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With my re-writes finished, I'm finally moving forward with the story again. I'll try to keep a more consistent update schedule now that I've finished everything. I'll try to write as much as I can, but I can't guarantee more than 2 chapters a month. If you get lucky and I have extra time to write, it'll probably be 3.

#### Whitehold

#### Mars

#### March 16th, 2841

“What’s your status?” a familiar voice sounded in Shiro’s ears. _Always right to the point,_ he thought to himself with a smirk. For all her banter aboard the _Pax_ , Victra always got right to business when they were in an actual battle. He bit back a witty remark and focused himself on the current situation.

“Whitehold’s command center is secure,” he reported. “We’re working on liberating the prisoners, but the board’s deploying Lurcher squads. Could use some reinforcements to help secure the facility.” Even going into this mission, Shiro understood the strike force was vastly outnumbered by the Board of Quality Control’s security. If the rebellion could spare even just one extra squad, it could tip the balance in their favor here.

“Nobody’s available now,” Victra answered. “But I’ll send the Telemanuses your way once they take Yorkton”

“We’re going after Yorkton already?” Shiro replied. “How’s everyone else doing?”

“Lune’s forces control two hundred fifty cities. Darrow’s holed up in Agea for the moment trying to find where he’s needed most. Mustang, Quinn, and the poet have naval supremacy over most of Mars. New Thebes is ours, and your boyfriend just took Cyprio. He’s headed for Corinth so once you’ve finished up in Whitehold we’ll send you to reinforce his troops.”

“Fair enough,” he said, his voice trailing off as he looked at his friend, reminding himself that the speakers in his helmet meant that nobody besides Keith and Victra would hear him. How was he going to explain this? “By the way, there’s been an… unexpected development.”

“Unexpected how?” Victra demanded.

“Keith’s here,” he answered bluntly. _Might as well rip off the band-aid and get it over with,_ he told himself.

There was a long pause, and Shiro was beginning to think the coms might have been jammed. It was a full fifteen seconds before she finally spoke again. 

“Alright,” Victra sighed. “Glad you got your little reunion, but we’ve got bigger things to worry about right now. We’ll sort out this time travel mind fuck when we aren’t fighting for our lives, register?”

“Register,” Shiro responded.

“Good,” Victra said. “Keep hammering at Whitehold. I’ll contact you once a squad is free and see if you still need reinforcements. Good luck.”

“Hic Sunt Leones,” he replied. Mustang’s brother and late father were dedicated to upholding the hierarchy, but the saying was too appropriate for him to just allow it to retain its original association. So, he was going to make sure that the words were remembered as something more, something better, than the family motto of a tyrant.

“Hic Sunt Leones,” she answered. Despite her brusqueness, Shiro could hear the friendly teasing in her voice. He chuckled as the connection cut out and his helmet retracted back into his pulseArmor. He looked over at Keith, whose body language broadcast his confusion to everyone present. Shiro bit back the urge to take his friend aside and explain what was going on. But they didn’t have time. Nexiti’s forces were under siege in the building’s command center, and if Shiro’s team didn’t lift that siege, this whole mission would be for nothing.

“Alright,” he called out to the troops. “Let’s move. Fennix, on my left. Evey, on my right.” The two veteran Sons of Ares nodded in understanding and took their places on either side of Keith. Shiro sighed, relieved to know that if they were attacked from the side, his two lieutenants would be ready to protect his fellow time travelling Paladin. A moment later, the rebel forces resumed their mad dash for the control center. Alarms blared as they ran through the labyrinthine corridors of the board’s central compound. As they made their way towards the facility’s security center, an incoming transmission chimed on Shiro’s datapad. _I’m in the coms system,_ Nexiti’s message read. _Playing the Reaper’s speech now. Pinned down in command center. Hurry._

 _"I would have lived in peace,”_ Darrow’s voice echoed over the PA system. _“But my enemies brought me war.”_

Shiro smiled under the leonine snarl of his demonHelm. Nexiti had done a head-count of the prison’s records when he cleared their way to Level 4. There were enough prisoners in Whitehold to throw the guards off balance and give the rebels a chance to tip the battle in their favor. Their orders were to play Darrow’s speech and let the rallying cry inspire the prisoners with hope. With any luck, most of them would be willing to join the Rising, as the coalition of rebel forces was starting to call itself.

_"My name is Darrow of Lykos. In the last twelve hours, you have all seen my story. It is but an echo of your own.”_

Shiro winced as gunfire from the guards pinged against the built in forcefields of his armor like hail on a metal roof. He lobbed a pulseGrenade in the direction of a barricade the enemy Grays had hastily erected in front of the entrance to the compound’s dining facility. When the explosion cleared, the guards were either dead or wounded. Evey and Fennix finished off the survivors as they moved forward into the mess hall.

_“They came to my home and killed my wife. Not for singing a song but for daring to question their reign. For daring to have a voice.”_

They were almost to the command center, and this was their last spot to regroup before they made the final push. As everyone checked and double checked their armor and inventory, Shiro looked over at Keith. Shiro had recognized the younger Paladin the instant Nexiti had shown him the security footage of the surgical wing. That had been part of why he’d been so desperate to get there in time.

_“For centuries, millions beneath the soil of Mars have been fed lies from cradle to grave. That lie has been revealed to them.”_

But he had just as many questions about how Keith had gotten here as he knew Keith did about what was going on. How did he get here? What had he been doing? How long had it been since their plan to stop Zarkon? Had they succeeded? Why was Keith wearing the Blade of Marmora uniform instead of his Paladin armor? 

_“Now, they've entered the world you know, and they suffer as you do.”_

He momentarily considered the possibility that Keith had arrived from a time during his trial at the Blade of Marmora’s base, but he quickly dismissed it as unlikely. There’s been nothing with enough energy to throw Keith into the future the way he had been.

_“Man was born free, but from the ocean shores to the crater cities of Mercury to the ice waste of Pluto down to the mines of Mars, he is in chains.”_

But that still left his litany of unanswered questions. But like he’d told Keith back in the interrogation wing, and Victra had reminded him earlier, explanations could wait until they weren’t in the middle of a battle.

_“Chains made of duty, hunger fear. Chains hammered to our necks by a race that we lifted up.”_

While the strike team readied for battle, Shiro walked over to Keith. Darrow’s speech played on a loop in the background as he turned on a jamField and nodded that it was safe for Keith to take his mask off.

_“A race that we empowered. Not to rule, not to reign, but to lead us from a world torn by war and greed.”_

“Sorry about all this,” Shiro said sheepishly as the holographic mask flickered away. “From what Nexiti could find of the board’s records, they think you’re proof of life outside Earth’s solar system. I figured it would be easier to maintain that lie than it would be to fabricate a backstory for you on short notice without attracting attention to the both of us.”

_“Instead, they have led us into darkness. They have used the systems of order and prosperity for their own gain.”_

“Hold on,” Keith interjected, eyes wide. “You said Earth’s solar system. Does that mean we’re back on Earth?”

“Right solar system, wrong planet,” Shiro replied with a teasing grin. “Welcome to Mars, Keith.”

_“They expect your obedience, ignore your sacrifice, and hoard the prosperity that your hands create.”_

“Mars?” Keith spluttered. “We’re seriously on Mars? But the Garrison never…. How long was I out for?”

“I’m not sure,” Shiro answered. “I need to know how long it’s been since we fought Zarkon to be sure. The last thing I remember before I woke up in this era was using all our bayards to upgrade Voltron’s sword. How long has it been for you since that?”

_“To hold tight to their reign, they forbid our dreams. Saying that a person is only as good as the Color of their eyes, of their Sigils.”_

“What? Shiro, that was months ago,” Keith replied, then paused, processing the rest of his friend’s words. “Wait… What do you mean “this era”?”

_“But now I stand before you, a man unbound. I stand before you, my brothers and sisters, to ask you to join me.”_

“Keith,” Shiro responded. “It’s been eight hundred four years since we found the Blue Lion.” Keith stiffened in shock, his eyes wide as he registered what Shiro had said.

_“To unite behind the Sons of Ares. To take back your cities, your prosperity. Dare to dream of better worlds than these.”_

“I’ll fill you in on the rest later,” Shiro said as he spotted Evey and Fenix motioning for him to rejoin the troops. “But we need to get moving again.”

_“Slavery is not peace. Freedom is peace. And until we have that, it is our duty to make war.”_

Keith clearly wanted to ask more questions, but he nodded and reactivated his mask. Shiro turned off the jamField and marched over to the front of the pack, his friend trailing behind him like a shadow. The doors opened and they resumed their push for the command center.

_“This is no license for savagery or genocide. If a man rapes, you kill him on the spot. If a man murders civilians, high or low, you kill him on the spot.”_

They hadn’t encountered any Lurchers yet, but the Board’s Grays were attempting to bar their passage in greater and greater numbers. The element of surprise may have worn off, but the rebels still had the advantage of experience and firepower.

_“This is war, but you are on the side of good, and that carries a heavy burden. We do not rise for hate or vengeance, for many highColors have had their eyes opened to the truth but lacked the courage or resources to act.”_

Most of the full time Gray security guards had never faced an Stained Obsidian in combat, so the Obsidians in Shiro’s unit were able to take advantage of the enemy soldiers’ momentary surprise to annihilate the guards’ roadblocks.

_“Now, we all rise together for love. For your children. For their future.”_

But the closer they got to the command center, they started encountering more and more Lurchers. The hired mercenaries were more experienced with the Sons of Ares’ usual tactics, and casualties began to mount up.

_“I speak now to Gold. To the Aureate who rule. I have walked your halls, broken your schools, eaten at your tables, and suffered your gallows.”_

Shiro ducked out of cover long enough to lob a plasma grenade at a squad of Lurchers. The Gray mercenaries dove out of the way, and Shiro tossed out a pulseGrenade before any of them could recover.

_“You tried to kill me. You could not. I know your power. I know your pride. And I have seen how you will fall.”_

Keith took advantage of his agility and smaller size to slip between the enemy ranks and put his blade to good use. Shiro tore through the rest with his razor, while the stragglers were picked off by Evey and Fenix’s troops.

_“For seven hundred years, you have ruled over the dominion of man, and this is all you have given us. It is not enough.”_

They reached the rendezvous point ten minutes later. The remaining Lurchers weren’t expecting to be attacked from the rear and were quickly wiped out. With their entire battalion back together, Fennix split their force back up into smaller squads, and Nexiti directed them to critical targets inside the compound, or to spots where the remaining guards were camped out. Shiro, Keith, and Evey were dispatched to the prison wing to help the prisoners break out. They left Prefect Vardan with the rest of their prisoners in a locked closet near the command center.

_“Today, I declare your rule to be at its end. Your cities are not your cities. Your vessels are not your vessels. Your planets are not your planets.”_

They reached the detention level to find two dozen guards engaged in a tense firefight against the surviving prisoners. Dozens of mid and lowColor corpses littered the floor of the facility’s prison wing as armored Grays with golden pyramids on their shoulders fired pulseRifles at the makeshift barriers the prisoners had set up in the prison’s main throughway.

_“They belong to us, the common trust of man. Now, we take them back. Never mind the darkness you spread, never mind the night you summon, we will rage against it.”_

The guards were so focused on the prisoners Shiro didn’t need a ghostCloak to sneak up on them. He slit one’s throat with an ionDagger, stabbed another with his razor, and decapitated a third before any of the enemy soldiers realized he was there. Fenix killed four more in as many seconds before the guards managed to realize that the attack was coming behind.

_“We will howl and fight till our last breath, not just in the mines of Mars, but on the shores of Venus, on the dunes of Io's sulfur seas, in the glacial valleys of Pluto.”_

With the guards distracted, the former prisoners charged out of their hiding places wielding whatever weapons they’d been able to scavenge from the guards they’d already killed. seven more Grays fell before the guards started fighting back.

_“We will fight in the towers of Ganymede and the ghettos of Luna and the storm-stricken oceans of Europa.”_

Once they realized that they were outnumbered, the prison guards dropped their weapons in surrender. The prisoners were hungry for revenge, but a quick rebuke from Shiro reminding them of the Reaper’s speech held them at bay. Still, the prisoners, particularly the Pinks, took a cathartic pleasure in securing the security officers’ restrains as tightly as they could without cutting off circulation.

As they secured their captives, Nexiti reported that most of the board had already been in the process of transferring their operations to Attica when the Sons of Ares attacked, meaning only Vardan and a handful of mid-ranking Golds and Coppers had stayed behind until the transition was complete. Frustrated with the news, he typed out a message to Victra on his datapad. _“Whitehold secure,”_ he wrote. _“But most of the Jackal was already moving most of the board to Attica.”_ He smiled as he waited for a reply. As the conclusion of Darrow’s speech played on the PA system, the Black Paladin felt a renewed sense of hope.

_“And if we fall, others will take our place, because we are the tide. And we are rising.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried something new with this chapter. I knew when I planned on Shiro attacking Whitehold that the Sons of Ares were going to hijack the PA system and broadcast Darrow's speech to rally the prisoners. I thought interweaving the words to the speech with the action would be an interesting way of representing that. Let me know if you think it worked. 
> 
> Cylax Nexiti and Fennix were introduced in the Sons of Ares prequel comic. They were some of the original Sons of Ares members alongside Fitchner and attacked Whitehold in a failed attempt to save Sevro's mom from execution. Since they were both alive at the end of the comic and were never mentioned in the original series, I thought it would be fun to bring them back as background Sons of Ares members. Evey disappeared from the story after a brief mention in Morning Star and hasn't been mentioned since, so I thought it would be good to give her something to do in this divergent timeline.


	11. Begin the Blitz

#### Whitehold

#### Mars

#### March 16th, 2841

Keith was still horribly confused. Time travel he could at least wrap his head around. It was possible that the energy of the Galra battle cruiser’s force field reacted with the weapons on Lotor’s ship, tearing open a rift in time. That was an explanation that, while farfetched, at least made a weird sort of sense. _But how did I get from Naxzela to Mars?_ He wondered. _And what exactly is going on here?_ Once the fighting stopped, the soldiers returned to the main command center of whatever this place was, taking their newly captive opponents with them. He followed Shiro into what he was now certain was the communications room and his friend called out to a green-haired man named Nexiti. Keith felt a pang of nostalgia as he walked into the room, the man’s technical expertise and green hair reminding him of Pidge.

“We’re shipping out prisoners back to Agea,” Shiro told the man. “I just sent them up to the landing pad with Evey’s men.”

“I’ll pass it on to Quicksilver,” Nexiti commented. “Also, Julii called. Telemanuses have secured Yorkton and they’re coming to pick us up once we finish planting the charges.”

“Good,” Shiro replied. “What’s our next target?”

“Corinth,” the green-haired computer specialist answered. “Your boyfriend needs reinforcements.” Keith blinked in surprise. Then he glanced sideways and smirked at Shiro, who was already looking at him all but begging him not to say anything. He still didn’t understand the situation he’d found himself in, but that wasn’t going to stop him from giving Shiro some good-natured teasing when he got the chance. Shiro shook his head and turned back to thank Nexiti for the update. Once he was done, the older man grabbed Keith’s arm and led the younger Paladin out of the room.

Soldiers stopped to salute Shiro as they made their way down the halls. Shiro stopped to talk to each of them, and Keith had to admire how deftly his friend managed to deflect questions about the smaller, strangely armored figure by his side. After a few minutes, they managed to escape the larger groups and duck into a supply closet. Shiro pressed something on his gauntlet, and Keith heard a loud pop in his ears.

“Alright,” Shiro said. “It’s safe to take your mask off. We’ve got an hour before our ride gets here so I’ve got some time to bring you up to speed on what’s going on.”

“Okay,” Keith replied nervously, his mask flickering before shutting off. Shiro took a deep breath, clearly trying to think of the best way to explain their situation.

“So,” the Black Paladin began. “I’m going to have to give you some background on everything first. In the late 21st Century, humanity began colonizing the rest of the solar system. To maximize efficiency and avoid wasting precious resources, the colonists developed a system of organizing labor, color-coded according to job class. Yellows are doctors, Greens are tech experts, Blues are pilots… that sort of thing. And the ones in leadership positions were Gold. By the turn of the 22nd century, the Golds had become wealthy from trade with Earth, but they were resentful for having to pay taxes and adhere to corporate interests back on Earth. So, they declared their independence from Earth and conquered it.” Keith was surprised at all of this, but he kept his mouth shut. He trusted Shiro and didn’t want to interrupt until his friend was finished explaining.

“Once they conquered Earth,” Shiro went on. “The Golds started to turn their labor classification system into a rigid caste system built to maintain their wealth at the expense of everyone else. It’s been just over seven hundred forty years since The Conquering. Twenty years ago, a resistance movement formed called the Sons of Ares, the largest and most significant rebellion against Gold rule in nearly half a millennium.” The Black Paladin paused, but Keith could tell there was still more to the story.

“I woke up on Luna, Earth’s moon, five months ago. The Golds keep extensive census records on everyone in the solar system, so when I showed up with no record of who I was or where I came from…”

“You stuck out like a sore thumb,” Keith finished.

“Exactly,” Shiro replied. “So thankfully I was unconscious when I arrived, or I’d have really been in trouble. I was lucky that the only person who found me was one of the few Golds who recognized that this oppressive caste system was wrong. She forged my credentials and gave me everything I needed to blend in among Gold. It was the only way to avoid capture and still be close to the only person who knew who I really was. Two months after that was The Summit, a big once-a-decade event where all the high-ranking Golds from Mercury to Pluto show up for three days of business deals and political power plays. The final night was capped off with a Gala in the capitol building.”

“Virginia had gotten me a job under the employ of her father, Martian ArchGovernor Nero au Augustus, so I was contractually obligated to attend. At the party, another of Augustus’ employees, a man named Darrow, started a riot between the Augustus family and their chief rivals, the Bellona. Now, Augustus was already losing favor with the Sovereign, the de facto empress of human civilization. She had planned to let the Bellona assassinate the Augustus household and all their allies and employees during the dinner. Darrow suspected as much and had started the riot to force the Sovereign’s hand. We fled Luna that night, but the Sovereign and the Bellona had already sent their forces ahead to Mars. We spent the next two months flying around gathering allies before we launched a full-scale invasion of Mars.”

“We took control of Mars three weeks ago, and Augustus declared war against the Sovereign” Shiro continued. “But last night, at a party held to celebrate our victory, the ArchGovernor’s son betrayed everyone, killing his father and most of Augustus’ allies. One Darrow and a handful of us escaped the massacre. Now we’re fighting to take Mars again for a completely different reason. Because Darrow was a spy for the Sons of Ares, his records forged so that he could climb the political ladder and bring the whole system down from the inside. But the ArchGovernor’s son had discovered that ruse as well. Darrow announced his real identity for every human in the solar system to see, and now the Sons of Ares are in open rebellion.”

“Wow…” was all Keith could say. It sounded like something out of a science fiction novel, but then again, he was one to talk. It wasn’t like the half-human son of a rebel spy going up against a ten-thousand-year-old alien empire could afford to throw stones in that department.

“Yeah,” Shiro laughed. “It’s crazy how complicated our lives have become in such a short period of time.”

“Wait!” Keith exclaimed, his eyes widening as he remembered his ship. “My ship! I was in a stolen Galra fighter when I blacked out. Did that make the trip too?” Shiro’s eyes widened.

“Let’s get back to Nexiti and find out,” the older man replied. “If it did, this could accelerate our long-term plans for the rebellion. It takes a minimum of twenty-three weeks for Society’s fastest ships to reach Pluto from Mars, but if we can use that Galra fighter to send troops out to the Rim, we could speed up the rebellion across the entire solar system.” Shiro pressed a button on his gauntlet again, and once more Keith heard a _pop_. Keith took that as his cue to put his mask back on.

“What is that noise exactly?” he asked.

“JamField,” Shiro answered, saying it quickly, like it was two words mashed together until they turned into one. “Temporarily deactivates all microphones and cameras in range and creates a small sound-proof bubble for private conversations.”

“Sounds like that comes in handy,” Keith commented with a smirk, even though he knew Shiro wouldn’t be able to see it. He could imagine Shiro and his boyfriend using one of those whenever they slept together.

“It really does,” Shiro replied, and the man’s matching smirk made it clear that he knew what Keith was thinking even without being able to see his friend’s face. “But no, we actually haven’t yet.”

“Seriously?” Keith whispered as they left the supply closet. Shiro typed up a message to Nexiti as they walked. “How long have you been together?”

“We only decided to take things from friendship to romance two weeks ago,” Shiro answered dryly. “And he’s made it clear he wants to deal with his own hang-ups before he’s ready for sex. We’re taking it slow.”

“Ok,” Keith remarked with a grin that said he was going to keep ribbing Shiro about his love life for a long time. The two of them were interrupted when that holographic screen appeared over Shiro’s forearm guard with a light flashing across it. Shiro looked down and pressed the button before his helmet slid out of his armor to cover his face. Keith activated his own communicator, so he could listen to the conversation.

“Well?” he heard Shiro ask.

“You were right,” Nexiti’s voice answered. “The board dragged a space craft that matches your description into the main garage a few hours ago. They had a makeshift lab set up down there to study it. I’m not sure how useful it will be, but if you’re sure it’ll be helpful, I’ll see if one of the prisoners we freed would be willing to pilot it back to Agea for us?”

“No,” Shiro replied. “It’s a short flight to Agea. We’ve still got an hour before our ride to Corinth gets here. I’ll take it back myself. You're in command until I get back. Make sure the charges are set.” Shiro finished the call and Keith turned off his coms. Shiro nodded, and the two men headed for the nearest elevator.

“Agea?” Keith asked once they were safe inside the elevator?

“Mars’ capital city,” Shiro answered. “Our rebel forces just secured it a couple hours ago.” On the wall of the elevator, the light ticked downward for each floor they descended. A minute later, the lift stopped, and the doors opened to revel a cavernous hangar. Land and air vehicles of varying sizes were spread throughout the massive room. And in the far corner of the room, next to a pile of broken tent poles and a crumbled up white sheet, was a battered starfighter of the Galra Empire. Keith looked around in silent awe as they walked over to the ship. When they reached the ship, Keith climbed around the fighter, inspecting it for damage. Satisfied that the ship looked fine on the outside, he climbed into the cockpit and started it up. He breathed a sigh of relief as Shiro jumped in behind him. The ship still worked.

“So, ow come you’re using that whip sword instead of the energy weapon in your arm?” he asked. Shiro tensed, and Keith winced at the realization that he’d obliviously stepped on a sensitive question.

“I lost it when Augustan forces conquered Mars three weeks ago,” the older man answered. “Caught a pulseGrenade with my metal hand. It blew the whole arm off. Thankfully, there are Violets – artists, I should say, called Carvers, who specialize in body mods and genetic alterations. They used a blood sample to grow me a new flesh and blood arm from scratch. There’s not even a scar, like the Galra never took my arm to begin with.” Keith felt a surge of happiness for his friend. He knew how much the arm haunted Shiro, and hearing that he’d been able to free himself of that reminder of his trauma – even if he was still bothered by the circumstances behind it – was a relief.

“That’s great to hear,” Keith commented. “Now, how do I get out of here? And how do I get to Agea?” The two paladins laughed while the hangar doors ground slowly open. Once the way out was clear, Keith powered the fighter back up and gently maneuvered the ship around the other vehicles in the hangar. Once they cleared the exit, he opened up the throttle and followed Shiro’s directions to the Martian capital.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I originally planned on just doing a constant rotation of Darrow-Shiro-Mustang-Keith, but when I was reworking my outline for the plot I realized I was going to have to play around with that depending on what's happening in the story.


	12. Two Houses

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in getting this chapter up. Between getting back from spring break and the chaos of the first two weeks of classes, I fell behind on my writing. It also took me a few tries to come up with a version of Cassius and Mustang's conversation that I was happy with.

####  _Deja Thoris_ medBay

#### Mars

#### March 16th, 2841

Mustang kept herself impassioned as she moved through the medBay. Bed after bed of injured rebels from Phobos and other operations across Mars filled the infirmary. Cassius was handcuffed to the side rails of a bed in the back, positioned so that he could be watch and be watched by the lowColors and feel the weight of this war the same way that they did. While the infirmary aboard the  _Deja Thoris_ had been fully stocked when the battle first broke out, the medical supplies they had on board quickly proved insufficient to the demand placed on the Yellows by the influx of wounded troops. When she dropped Cassius off, the Yellows had informed her that priority for painkillers and other hard meds was given to burn victims and amputees.

It was easy to spot the Bellona family's trademark curly hair as Mustang walked into the room. She moved towards the back of the room until she stopped at the foot of his bed. All things considered, Cassius looked perfectly healthy. She hadn't touched his jugular, and the ship's medical staff had patched him in a couple of hours. He looked up at the sound of her approach, and she kept her face neutral as she saw the heartbreak in his eyes. She tapped her datapad and activated a jamfield around his bed. Her brother's spies had been purged from the rebel fleet thanks to Quicksilver's intel, but she didn't want the average soldier overhearing their conversation.

"I guess I should have known better," he began sadly. "Mother had been telling me since before the Summit how foolish I was to court you. But part of me still believed that what we had was real." Mustang bit her lip. She had told Darrow after they'd fled Luna how horrible she'd felt about sleeping with a man she didn't love. But as Darrow had reminded her, she'd done it to protect the people she did love, whether her father and brother deserved it.

"I'm sorry that I played you like that Cassius," she replied. "I really am. I told Darrow how much I hated myself for it. But I don't regret the lengths I went to protect my family."

"And yet you still stand with Darrow even though he was never a Gold, and had been sent by the Sons of Ares to destroy our society, something that would inevitably end with your family's deaths?" She knew he didn't mean for it to come out as an accusation, but that was how it sounded just the same.

"You forget that my twin was the one who killed my father," she answered. "If Adrius hadn't done that, I would have done what I could to ensure that they be captured alive. You need to stop living in the past, Cassius, and look at the big picture."

"He killed my brother," Cassius snapped.

"This coming from the man who bragged about breaking the trachea of Nexus au Celintus with his fingers," Mustang retorted sarcastically. "The man who tried to make a game of who killed who in the Passage. Every one of us in our year had to kill someone at the Institute. Roque. Sevro. Quinn. Me. You killed someone's relative in the Passage, but I haven't heard the family Celintus demanding your head. SubGovernor Priscilla au Caan didn't declare a blood feud with House Barca for Priam's death. So why are you still blaming Darrow for being used for my father's dirty work?"

Cassius was silent for several moments.

"It wasn't just that," the Morning Knight replied sullenly, his golden curls swinging from side to side as he shook his head. "I gave Nexus a quick, clean death. Any pain he would have felt would have been over quickly. But Darrow bludgeoned my brother in a darkened room until he died."

"Sevro stomped on Priam's trachea, but Priscilla au Caan didn't declare a blood feud with House Barca for it," Mustang retorted. "Not everyone was trained to kill as efficiently as you, Cassius."

"Well at least Darrow could have been honest with me!" Cassius snapped, his eyes moist with tears. "I could tell from the first day how broken up he was over having to kill in the Passage. If he'd just come to me and told me he'd been thrown in with Julian I'd have been able to forgive him. But instead I had to find out from a holocube that the man I was falling in love with killed my brother and had been lying about it so I would suspect Titus instead of him." Mustang froze. She had suspected Cassius's admiration of Darrow prior to their falling out had been deeper than just friendship. But he was clearly worked up over revealing something so private, so she decided to wait until he continued before she commented.

"Goryhell," the Bellona whispered, his eyes moist with tears. "That's the first time I've ever actually said that out loud. Mustang's thoughts were racing as she methodically analyzed this new information and its implications. She knew that Cassius had loved to brag to Darrow about how he'd "stolen his girl". She'd suspected Cassius had motivations of his own for entering a relationship with her, even if he did genuinely care for her. She'd initially thought Cassius bragging about their relationship was a means to say how much better than Darrow he was.  _But if Cassius had been in love with Darrow as well…_

"You always saw our relationship as finding happiness with someone else who loved Darrow and been pushed away, didn't you?" she asked rhetorically as she finished his sentence for him. Cassius winced.

"I sound so pathetic when you put it like that," he mumbled. "Like a lovesick puppy." Mustang chuckled in amusement.

"Well I can't exactly blame you for being in love with him," she said with a smirk. "You'd hardly be the first Institute graduate to fall for him. Honestly, Tactus told me part of the reason he and Roque were intimate with each other at the Academy was because they both knew Darrow only had eyes for me. I haven't seen Adrius very often, even after we left Luna. But if I found out today that my brother was secretly attracted to Darrow I would hardly be surprised. He has that magnetic quality that attracts people to him in more ways than one." That managed to lift Cassius's spirit, and the last scion of House Bellona let out a warm chuckle.

"It's not like I had anyone I could talk to, really," he commented. "Everyone else in my family was too focused on avenging Julian to understand my own turmoil. My parents were traditionalists enough that they would have preferred for me to end up with a wife even if I had told them I enjoyed the company of both men and women. You weren't interested in going into much more detail about the feud, and the Furies aren't the sort one turns to for love advice." Mustang winced at the reminder of her decision to use Cassius, even as she laughed at his last comment.

"No, they are not," she chuckled. The laughter died as she reminded herself of why she came here. She turned to look at Cassius and knew from his expression that he had guessed her reason for visiting him.

"If you think the Sovereign will barter, you're wrong," Cassius commented. "She won't sacrifice a single thing to save me."  _He guessed it,_ Mustang thought, impressed with the Olympic Knight's ability to guess her train of thought. To be completely honest, they hadn't announced Cassius's capture yet. None of the dragoons under his command had survived the Nakamura siblings' betrayal, and they'd kept him covered under a ghostCloak as they escorted him to the infirmary. Mustang had wanted to talk to him first before she decided what to do with him.

"Then why serve her?" Mustang asked. As she stood by his bedside, she reached into her back pocket and pulled out her trump card, rolling it in her hand as she tried to direct the conversation to a point where she could use it.

"Duty," Cassius said the word, but Mustang wondered how deeply he meant them any longer.  _All the same,_ she thought to herself.  _He just gave me the opening I needed._

"And does she deserve your loyalty?" she asked. The Bellona was confused as she leaned forward and forced the holocube into Cassius's palm. Images danced across the surfaces of the thumb-sized triangular prism before floating into the air about the Bellona's hands. The scene of his family dying played, bathing him in blue light. Shadows moved through a hall, becoming men in scarabSkin. They cut down his aunt in a hallway and the men moved through and appeared a moment later dragging children, which they killed with the razors and boots. More bodies were dragged and piled up, then lit on fire so there would be no survivors. More than forty children and non-scarred members of the Bellona family died that night.

"They thought they could heap the sin upon Darrow's shoulders," Mustang said, voice trembling with barely contained rage. "But it was my brother's work. He finished the war between our families once and for all, and the Sovereign's cooperation and silence was his price for last night's massacre. The compact was started with noble intentions. To bring justice to the Society of Man. But we Aureate have all forgotten what that means. That is why this world is broken. I stand with Darrow in the hope that the next one will be better."

"There's something you should know," he said finally, his voice raw with conflicted emotion as he wrestled with the choices before him. "There's an asteroid warehouse. On a minor main belter in the Karin Cluster. Designation S-1988. Silicate-based junk asteroid. If you manage to win here today, you're going to have to destroy it."

"Why?" she inquired, voice growing concerned. "Cassius, what's in the warehouse?" He hesitated, unsure of where to place his loyalty. The fact he'd even told her this much was proof that he no longer cared about the Sovereign. But that didn't necessarily mean he was willing to join their rebellion. After a moment of silence, he let out a breath and continued.

"Five hundred nuclear warheads," he answered darkly.

"What's their yield?" Mustang asked, already piecing together a theory in the back of her mind.

"Thirty megatons each," Cassius replied weakly. Mustang kept expression carefully neutral. Years of training was the only think keeping her from wearing her horror on her sleeve.

"In case the Ash Lord ever had to repeat Rhea," she finished as she deduced the reason the Sovereign would keep warheads of that size in such large quantities stored between the Core and the Rim. Cassius nodded, and Mustang's expression darkened at another reminder of how cancerous and corrupt the Society had become. According to the Compact, planetary armadas were only permitted twenty nuclear warheads in their arsenals for the purposes of ship-to-ship warfare, all under five megatons. The last time atomics had been used in combat had been forty years ago, when Magnus au Grimmus put down the Moon Lords' Rebellion and earned himself the moniker of Ash Lord over the fifteen million souls slaughtered in the nuclear inferno that turned the moon of Rhea to glass.

"You know if Darrow could bring Julian back to you, he would," Mustang said. "But human science has not yet managed to conquer death. So, this war is for him, or men like him. The decent. It's for the quiet and gentle who know how the world should be but can't shout louder than the bastards. I understand that you have a lot on your plate now. Believe me. If not for this gorydamn war I'd lock myself in a stateroom for a week until I'd processed my grief over my father's murder and my brother's betrayal. But we don't have the luxury of dealing with our pain when we want to. I need you to set aside all this talk of blood feuds and revenge and ask yourself what Julian would want you to do in this situation?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pierce Brown confirmed on Twitter that Cassius is bisexual, but thus far he's only been seen expressing romantic interest in women during the original trilogy. Then Iron Gold came out and a bunch of fans started speculating about the fact that Cassius got drunk after finding out Darrow and Mustang got married. Given how much homoerotic tension there's been between the two, a bunch of us have theorized that Cassius was in love with Darrow before he started dating Mustang. Right now it's just my headcanon (at least until Pierce says anything for or against it), but i'm including it for the sake of the story. 
> 
> I borrowed a lot of Cassius' dialogue (and a bit of Mustang's) from his two big conversations with Darrow in Morning Star prior to the final battle. With everything escalating I thought it would fit for certain things in the book to happen sooner.


	13. Fish Out of Water

#### Corinth

#### Mars

#### March 16th, 2841

Keith was quiet, his face uncovered as he stood in the loading bay of the troop transport as it cruised through the Martian atmosphere. All around him men and women of drastically varied heights and hair of a thousand different shades of gold, white, green, pink, red, orange, and gray readied themselves for battle. Inlaid forcefields were charged. Guns, energy weapons, and projectile launchers of all types were loaded and prepared for battle. Knives were sheathed. And whip-like swords called razors were coiled around forearm armor.  Not willing to test the durability of the Blade of Marmora’s uniforms against these kinds of weapons, he’d been given a suit of what Shiro had called “pulseArmor”, along with a crash course in the use of gravBoots and pulseFists before Shiro’s troops had to leave for Corinth, a city in Mars’ southern hemisphere that was home to the fourth planet’s largest commercial spaceport.

Despite what Keith had told Shiro, he was still having a hard time wrapping his head around everything. And that was saying something considering how outlandish some of the things they’d gotten up to out in the wider universe had been. Despite Shiro being abducted by the Galra and the Galaxy Garrison covertly preparing to fend off an alien invasion, Earth had apparently never had contact with extraterrestrial life after the abduction of the Kerberos Crew for over eight hundred years. The empire not invading the planet because the Voltron Coalition was a higher priority, he could understand. But the idea that none of his team, none of the paladins, had even once managed to find the time to go home. Especially after it was all over? That he couldn’t understand.

If he didn’t already know that only Voltron could travel between realities unharmed, he’d have thought he’d fallen between realities instead of time periods. Everything around him was so completely alien from what he’d left behind when they’d left Earth in the blue lion all those months ago. Ship designs were one thing, but gravBoots, ghostCloaks, pulseFists? It was dizzying for him to keep track of all the terms the soldiers around him kept throwing around so casually. _You’d think I’d be used to all of it after living on an Altean castle-ship for so long,_ he thought to himself. On the castle, he’d at least had the luxury of slowing down long enough to learn what everything meant.

But what made this experience so alienating was how close to home it was. He’d stepped into the future of humanity and the only thing familiar was the pseudo-Roman architecture of Mars’ capital city. The only thing that kept him grounded in this sea of unfamiliar faces was Shiro. Paradoxically, the more he thought about it, the more Shiro seemed like the most confusing part of this entire scenario. Shiro had apparently been sent to the future immediately after the big fight with Zarkon where he went missing. But somehow whatever the empire had done to him had apparently made him forget his journey through time. Or was it something else? Had Shiro deliberately kept his experiences a secret because he knew that Keith would someday end up in the same future? Had he deliberately pushed Keith into leaving the team because Keith himself had outlined the sequence of events leading to their reunion in this era?

 _No_ , Keith thought. _That’s not like Shiro. He’d never do something like that. He’d never do that to me. Would he?_

That was a question that would have to wait until he had more information or else made it back to his own time. Whichever came first. He listened with half an ear as Shiro briefed his unit on their battle plan for when they reached Corinth. The Black Paladin was the only person he recognized amid the sea of unfamiliar faces. Evey and Fennix, the Pink woman and the Gray male who’d been with them at Whitehold, were giving similar briefings in other dropships as they flew to reinforce rebel troops in other cities. Outside the window, the waters of the Thermic Sea sparkled blue beneath them as they cut across Mars’ southern hemisphere.

Once the briefing was concluded, Shiro walked over to Keith and discreetly tapped his finger against his ear. The Red Paladin ( _former_ , he reminded himself with a pang of longing) nodded before running his tongue along the bottom of his teeth, activating the small electrodes that Virany, the rebellion’s lead doctor, had attached that caused his helmet to fold out of a small compartment in his armor above the back of his neck until it covered his entire head. He turned and looked at Shiro quizzically. He still hadn’t gotten the hang of how to turn his armor’s external speakers on and off. Shiro was more patient with him that he was expecting and demonstrated how to switch the speakers off from his datapad before opening a private com channel.

“Stay close to me, alright?” Shiro reminded him. Keith nodded. Ever since he’d shown up, Shiro had been almost overprotective of him in a way. It wasn’t as if Keith could blame him. He’d gotten a glimpse of what Shiro was capable of with this kind of tech and even he knew that what he’d seen was only the tip of the iceberg. Compound that with the fact that Shiro knew more about what was going on than he did, and it was only natural that the Black Paladin would be so protective toward him. The Sons of Ares had offered to let him recuperate in Agea while Shiro went to reinforce the siege of Corinth, but Keith had refused. He was already disoriented enough. He didn’t want to lose the only source of familiarity he had.

“As long as you don’t die on me, Shiro,” he replied, half-joking as he tried to inject one last bit of levity before they headed into battle. “You still need to introduce me to your boyfriend.” Even with their faces covered by their helmets, Keith could tell Shiro was blushing right then. The mood turned somber as Keith’s laughter died. He put a hand on Shiro’s shoulder, slightly tense before his fingers confirmed that the energy shield in Shiro’s armor had been turned off.

“You’ll make it back,” he said. Keith could tell from how eager he was to find out more about what had happened after their fight with Zarkon that not being able to come back had been weighing on Shiro. But the fact that, from Keith’s perspective, he’d already been rescued meant that the Black Paladin was destined to make it home.

“And so will you,” Shiro replied firmly. Internally, Keith winced. He’d told Shiro about his attempted sacrifice play, and it had only made his friend more protective of him. He appreciated it, he really did. He wasn’t a death seeker, but it wasn’t like he was going to cause a temporal paradox if the worst happened. He didn’t really have anything he could say in response to Shiro’s pronouncement. That would only lead to Shiro trying to mother hen him during the battle and now was not the time for his friend to be distracted. He turned off his com and collapsed his helmet, Shiro doing the same a second later, when a voice came over the intercom.

 _Five minutes to drop zone,_ the ship’s pilot announced in the cool, clipped tones that Keith was beginning to associate with Blues. If any other “Colors” talked like that, he had yet to meet them. All around him, the troops finished making their preparations and got into position. Shiro helped make sure that the pulseShield inlaid in his armor was turned on before leading him toward the front of the launch bay. Keith fidgeted as he stood by Shiro’s side. On Shiro’s left was a towering Obsidian by the name of Wulfgar. Keith glanced behind them to see two dozen soldiers, armor all painted with the spiked helmet of the Sons of Ares, or the red crescent scythe of the Reaper of Mars, the rebellion’s leader.

“Break the chains!” The Black Paladin shouted.

“BREAK THE CHAINS!!!” The troops roared in answer, fists raised in the air.

Finally, it was time. The lights changed to green, the launch bay doors opened, and everyone dove out into the meat grinder. Smoke and fire clogged the Martian atmosphere over Corinth. Smoke and flames rose from the top of the island city’s perimeter walls, the translucent energy shield long since disabled. The remaining artillery turned to fire toward their dropship. Keith and Shiro narrowly banked in time to dodge incoming railgun fire, depleted uranium shells arcing outward before gravity dragged the now useless projectiles down beneath the waves of the southern ocean, where old water ships spew death and fire up at the airborne rebels.

Despite the intensity of the loyalists’ anti-aircraft fire, it was clear that the battle was going in favor of the rebellion. According to Shiro, Corinth’s defenses were some of the best on Mars, second only to Agea itself. And if the rebels had managed to take control of Mars’ capital city, then it was only a matter of time until Corinth and its spaceport fell under the control of the rebellion. Explosions echoed all around them. Keith accelerated to keep up with Shiro as his brother in all but blood weaved through the minefield of explosions and artillery shells toward the city, three dozen Sons of Ares following behind. The coms were a cacophony of orders, status reports, and screams as men and women fought and bled and died around them.

A few feet away, a rebel soldier launched a flurry of micromissiles down at the sea defenses before a railgun shell blew them in half. Keith flinched as shrapnel and blood fizzled against the shielding of his pulseArmor. Three more Sons of Ares dropped from the sky as an enemy starfighter strafed their group. Their dropship fired a missile at the ripWing, sending it spiraling down into the sea in a trail of fire and smoke. They faced stiffer resistance the closer they got to the city’s walls. Shiro slowed his pace and linked arms with Keith, guiding the younger Paladin as they pushed forward toward the landing zone on the beaches.

Keith was about to protest that the defenses on the wall would tear them to shreds the minute they landed when an explosion took out one of the defense platforms. Another artillery emplacement fell a few seconds later, then another, and another, until within five minutes, the landing zone had been cleared of enemy fire. Wulfgar landed behind them, as graceful as a Blade of Marmora agent despite his massive size. Keith stumbled to his knees as he and Shiro touched down on the beach. Flying like that had been a disorienting experience, and he was still a little dizzy from using the gravBoots to control the speed of his landing. Once he had gotten his balance back, Shiro extended a hand and helped him to his feet before looking up at the wall.

From the top of the fortification, a lone figure descended, accelerating down before suddenly slowing as the figure adjusted the settings on his hover boots. Once the figure had landed on the shore, they retracted their helmet, revealing a dark-skinned man who appeared to be a few years older than Keith. Keith initially tensed at the sight of the man’s golden eyes and hair, but relaxed when he caught sight of the insignia painted on the chest of the man’s armor.

There were countless Gold families and factions across the solar system, each with their own symbols. Shiro had given him a run-through of which ones he needed to recognize on the battlefield before they’d left Agea. The silver eagle of Bellona. The crescent moon of the Sovereign’s family. The bleeding sun of House Julii. It was dizzying to keep track of which symbols belonged to the enemy. But Keith knew enough that he recognized the rebellion’s red wolf painted across the Gold’s armor. _He’s one of our allies, then,_ he thought to himself as the golden man approached. Keith was puzzled why the new arrival wasn’t say anything, until Shiro retracted his own helmet and kissed the man. Keith blinked once as understanding dawned on him, then smirked under his helmet at Shiro as he thought of what to say once the Black Paladin and his boyfriend came up for air.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will be out quicker, since it's a partly-book compliant chapter that I'd already typed up months ago. I just need to make some modifications for where I've put it in the timeline.


	14. Betrayal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another book-quoting chapter, slightly different but still more or less playing out the same as in canon.
> 
> Edit: Worked in some nameless prisoners into the chapter to make things more believable. Don't worry about who they are. They're just nameless, generic background characters of no real importance to the long term plot.

####  _Pax_ Bridge

#### Martian Orbit

#### March 16th, 2841

As Darrow walked through the halls of the Pax, the ship throbbed with activity. While all boarding parties on the Pax had been repelled under Orion's leadership, the battle in space continued to rage. He and Sevro had been ferried up to orbit an hour ago when Mustang told him she had a plan she needed to discuss with him in person. There was real fear in the air, and the minds of Darrow's men, and the chatter they picked up over the coms from the enemy fleet. For the first time in centuries, Gold had shown weakness. Each city they took down on the surface of Mars spread the rebellion faster than his speech alone ever could.

Soldiers saluted the Reaper as they passed him in the hall on the way to their troop carriers and leechCraft. The squads were predominantly Red and defected Grays, but Darrow smiled as he caught sight of Green battletechs, Red mechanics, and Obsidian scouts and infantry in each capsule as well. He also saw dozens of wounded men and women being ferried to the dreadnaught's medbay. Darrow looked down at his datapad and resent the shuttle flight clearance order to the warship's flight controller with his authorization code, and it was quickly accepted and cleared. Under better circumstances, Darrow would trust the order to stand on his own, but he wanted to be sure, so he made his way to the bridge to confirm in person.

The Red marine captain responsible for the security of the bridge shouted his men to attention when Darrow entered. More than fifty armed soldiers saluted the revolutionary leader, while the Blues in their pits continued in their operations. Orion stood at the forward observation post, hands clasped behind her back as a hologram of Roque hovered in the air before him. On the holo, Roque caught sight of him and nodded in his direction. Orion turned to face the Reaper, her large pale eyes standing in contrast with her nasty white-toothed smile. Roque said goodbye and disconnected the call to return to his own portion of the battle.

"Reaper," she greeted warmly as Darrow joined her in looking out through the glass viewports. "The second Battle of Mars is going well."

"How does it look?" the young warlord asked as he observed the two armadas firing munitions and troops transports at each other across the darkness of space.

"The Jackal has pulled up his fleet in defensive array," the Blue replied as she clasped her meaty hands behind her back. "He and the loyalists look to be preparing to withdraw from orbit. They've realized they can't hold the planet much longer without risk of being captured or killed themselves."

"And they know that they need only get far enough away to regroup with the Ash Lord before they can go back on the offensive," Roque commented, his face tinted pale blue by the hologram projecting his image from his command ship.

"And the Sovereign?" Darrow asked. Orion and Roque exchanged glances.

"Still on the Invictus according to Quicksilver's spies," the Blue reported before changing the subject to his reason for coming to the bridge. "Now, what's this I hear about a flight clearance for a sarpedon-class shuttle from HB Delta?" Internally, Darrow winced. He knew she would notice, and he didn't want to explain it to her right then. Not everyone was as compassionate toward Cassius as he was. Even Sevro was still raw over the role the Morning Knight played in his father's death. Fitchner may have already fallen to the Praetorians, but Cassius delivering the final blow gave the small Howler a target for his grief.

"I'm sending an emissary to meet with the Rim," the Reaper lied. "Gauge whether they'll stand with us even knowing what I am."

"We both know you're not," she said. "What's going on?" He stepped closer, so no one could overhear them.

"If Cassius remains in the fleet while the war rages," he whispered. The Morning Knight had been transferred to the Pax from Mustang's warship a few hours ago. "Someone will try to get past the guards and slit his throat. There's too much hate for the Bellona for him to stay here."

"Then hide him in another cell," Orion protested quietly. "Don't release him. He'll just go back to them. Rejoin the war."

"He won't," Darrow reassured her. She looked behind him to ensure they weren't being overheard.

"If anyone finds out…" she said.

"This is exactly why I didn't tell anyone," he replied. "I'm releasing him. You clear that shuttle. You let it go. I need you to promise me." Orion's lips made a thin, hard line. She nodded and looked back to Mars. As always, Darrow felt that she knew more than she let on.

"I promise," she finally said. "But you be careful, boy."

He met Sevro in the hall outside the ship's high security prisoner lockup. The head of the Sons of Ares was sitting atop the orange cargo crate and its floating gravRig as he drank from a flask, his left hand resting on the scorcher in his leg hostler. Given its guests, the hall was quieter than it should have been, but it was in the main hangars and gun stations and engines and armories where his ship pulsed with activity, not here on the prison deck.

"What took you?" Sevro asked, stretching uncomfortably against his new combat vest beneath his black fatigues. His boots clicked together as his legs dangled. After a few minutes of small talk, Mustang approached.

"Guards are redeployed," she said. "Marine patrols are diverted from hall 13-c. Cassius is clear to the hangar."

"Good," Darrow said as he touched her hand. "You sure about this?"

"Not entirely," she answered. "But that's my life."

"Sevro?" Darrow asked. "You still prime?"

"Obviously?" the Howler replied as he hopped down from the create. "I'm here, ain't I?"

Sevro helped Darrow maneuver the gravRig through the door to the brig. The guard station was deserted, food wrappers and tobacco disposal cups all that remained of the Sons team tasked with guarding the prisoners. Sevro followed Darrow from the entrance down into the decagon room of duroglass cells, whistling the old tune he'd made up for Pliny barely more than a month ago.

"If your leg's a little wet…" he sang as the group stopped before Cassius' cell. Sevro knocked on the duroglass separating them from Cassius. Two Gold prisoners stirred in the empty cells nearest to the Bellona's. They snapped to full alertness when they realized who was there, eyes burning with curiosity for what the Reaper and his most trusted comrades were doing here in the brig of their own warship and what they wanted the Olympic Knight for.

"Wakey wakey, Sir Bellona," he called. Cassius wiped the sleep from his eyes as he sat up from his bed. He took in the sight of Darrow and Sevro, but spoke only to Mustang.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"We have an offer for you," Darrow answered.

"What kind of offer?" Cassius replied warily.

"When you told Mustang you were tired of these wars, did you mean it?" Darrow asked.

"I don't understand…" Cassius replied.

"It's pretty bloodydamn simple, Cassius," Mustang interjected. "Yes or no."

"Yes," Cassius said from his cot while Antonia sat up to watch the exchange. "I am. How could I not be? It's taken everything from me. All for people who only care about themselves."

"Well?" Darrow asked Sevro, waiting for his friend's approval.

"Oh, please," Sevro snorted. "You think that's going to satisfy me?"

"What game are you playing at?" Cassius asked.

"Ain't no game, boyo. Darrow wants me to let you out," Sevro answered as Cassius' eyes widened. "But I needa know you aren't gonna come try to kill us. You're all about honor and blood debts, so I need you to swear an oath, so I can sleep soundly."

"I killed you father…" Cassius protested.

"You really should stop reminding me of that," Sevro retorted, his face betraying the anger he kept hidden from his voice.

"If you stay here, we can't protect you," Darrow told the Bellona. "I believe the worlds still need Cassius au Bellona. But there's no place for you here. And there's no place for you with the Sovereign. If you give me your oath, on your honor, that you will leave this war behind you, I'll give you your freedom." Cassius looked at Mustang, judging their proposal.

"You agreed to this?" he asked her.

"It was my idea," she answered. "None of this is your fault, Cassius. I was cruel to you, and I'm sorry for that. I know you wanted revenge on Darrow. On me…"

"Not on you," Cassius replied. "Not ever on you." Mustang flinched before she continued.

"But I know you've seen what revenge brings," she said. "I know you've seen what Octavia really is. What my brother really is. You're only guilty of trying to protect your family. You don't deserve to die here."

"They're lying to you Bellona!" one of the other prisoners snapped. "They'll shoot your gorydamn head off the minute you step out that door!"

"You really want me to go?" Cassius asked, ignoring the protests of his fellow prisoners.

"I want you to live," she said. "And yes. I want you to go, and never come back."

"But… go where?" he asked.

"Anywhere but here," she replied. Cassius swallowed, searching himself. Not just seeking to understand what he owes honor and duty, but trying to imagine a world without Mustang. Darrow knew the horrible loneliness the man felt now even as he offered Cassius his freedom. Life without love is the worst prison of all, the Reaper thought to himself. But Cassius licked his lips and nodded to Mustang, not to him.

"On my father," the Bellona began. "On Julian, I promise not to raise arms against any of you. If you let me go, I will leave. And I will never come back."

"You traitor," a Gold woman in the cell next door spat in disgust at the Morning Knight.

"Still your call," Darrow told Sevro, nudging his friend. Sevro tugged the hairs of his burgeoning goatee as he contemplated the plan.

"Ah, hell," the original Howler remarked. "You better be right about this, you pricklicks." He dug into his pocket, pulled out a magnetic key card, and unlocked Cassius's cell door with a heavy thunk.

"Then there's a shuttle waiting for you in the auxiliary hangar on this level," Mustang told their prisoner evenly. "It's been cleared to fly. But you have to go now."

"That means now, shithead," Sevro said.

Cassius put a tentative hand on the cell door, as if he was afraid he'd push and find it locked, and then they would laugh at him and all the hope they'd given him would be ripped away. But he had faith and, steeling his face, he pushed. The cell's door swung outward. He walked out to join them, holding his hands out to be cuffed. But Sevro shook his head.

"You're a freeman," Sevro slurred as he rapped the orange box heavily with his knuckles. "But you gotta get in box so we can wheel you outta here without anyone seeing."

"Of course," Cassius replied, pausing as he turned back to Darrow and extended a hand. Darrow shook it, a strange feeling of kinship rising within him. "Goodbye, Darrow."

"Good luck, Cassius," Darrow replied. When Cassius turned to Mustang, he paused, wanting to reach out and give her a hug, but she merely stuck out her hand, cold to him even now. He looked at her hand and shook her head, not accepting the gesture.

"We'll always have Luna," he said.

"Goodybe, Cassius," Mustang replied.

"Goodybe," he said back as he went to the crate, which Sevro had opened, and looked inside. He hesitated there, wanting to say something to Sevro. "I don't know if your father was right," the Bellona said to Sevro as he extended his hand. "But he was brave. I'm sorry he's not here." Sevro blinked hard at the hand, clearly wanting to hate it. This wasn't coming easy for him. Darrow knew his friend had never been a gentle soul, but Sevro did his best and took the outstretched hand. They shook, but something felt wrong. Cassius wouldn't let go. His face was gold, his eyes unforgiving.

His body rotated so fast that Darrow couldn't stop him from jerking back on Sevro's hand, pulling Ares' smaller body forward towards himself just as he swiveled his hip, bringing the rebel warlord to his right armpit like they were dancing so he could strip the other man's pistol from his leg hostler. Sevro stumbled, fumbling for the weapon, but it was already gone. Cassius shoved him off and stood behind him with the scorcher pressed to his spine. Sevro's eyes were huge, staring at his friends in fear.

"Darrow…" he said weakly.

"Cassius, no!" Darrow shouted.

"This is my duty," Cassius retorted.

"Cassius…" Mustang tried to intercede as she took a step forward. Her outstretched hand was trembling. "He saved your life… Please"

"On your knees," Cassius ordered to them angrily. "On your gorydamn knees." Darrow hesitated as he felt himself teetering on the edge of a precipice, the darkness spreading out before him, whispering to have him back. He couldn't reach for his razor. Cassius could easily shoot him down before he could even pull it. Mustang went to her knees and motioned for him to get down. Numbly, he follow's his fiance's lead.

"Cassius," Darrow begged. "Listen to me…"

"I said on your knees," Cassius repeated to Sevro.

"On my knees?" Sevro retorted, smiling wickedly with a mad gleam in his eye. "Stupid Gold. You forgot Howler rule number one. Never bow." He snatched up his razor from his right wrist, trying to spin around. But he was too slow. Cassius shot him in the shoulder, jerking him sideways. The combat vest cracked, spraying blood onto the metal wall. Sevro stumbled forward, his eyes wild.

"For Gold," Cassius whispered before firing six more shots point-blank into Sevro's chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, book readers, you all know what's coming. Antonia hasn't been captured yet in this universe so I was unsure of how this scene would play out without her there. If you feel the lack of other Golds present detracts from what comes after, please let me know and I'll edit in some Gold prisoners to help sell what we all know is coming.
> 
> And the reason that this chapter doesn't make any mention of Cassius confessing to Mustang that he has feelings for Darrow is because Mustang hasn't told Darrow. She figured that it was up to Cassius whether or not to share that information.


	15. Best Laid Plans

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a head's up that there's going to be a graphic description of mutilated dead bodies this chapter. I'm really earning the M rating this time. You have been warned.

#### Corinth

#### Mars

#### March 16th, 2841

“Glad to see you made it through,” Tactus said when they finally came up for air. Shiro blushed as he caught sight of Keith’s teasing smirk.

“Likewise,” he replied, shaking his head to focus back on the task at hand. “What’s the situation here in Corinth?”

“Drawing out,” Tactus sighed, gesturing for the two Paladins to follow him. “We’ve taken most of the city, but Lune’s forces still control the spaceport. We’ve set up camp a few districts over from here, so this was where some of the fighting was has been fiercest. I daresay your arrival tipped the balance and distracted the pixies long enough for us to drive them out of this sector.”

“Good thing we got here in time, then,” Shiro commented as he threaded his fingers through Tactus’.

“My thoughts exactly,” the Golden man replied as he led them through the bombed-out warzone of Corinth’s streets toward the Sons of Ares’ command center. Explosions detonated off in the distance as they treaded carefully through the city’s streets and alleyways. The smoking husks of abandoned aircars burned along the central boulevard, while bodies lined their path, people on both sides mutilated in every way imaginable by the high-tech warfare of 29th Century humanity. The city sewers were backed up and overflowing with a nauseating blend of blood, body parts, and human waste. As Tactus explained while they walked, the loyalists had attempted to seize control of the city’s municipal buildings, only to kill the engineers and sanitation works responsible for maintaining control of critical functions like power, plumbing and sanitation in their fanatic zeal to hold the city.

“We’re making progress, though,” Tactus continued as the group crossed to the other side of the narrow alley to avoid stepping on the body of a young Green. As they walked past, Shiro couldn’t help but take in the sight of the girl slumped against the wall behind her, her face almost completely melted from the extreme heat of a pulseFist blast. Her right arm, shoulder, and a sizeable chunk of her ribcage were gone, leaving nothing behind but a meaty cavity overflowing with blood. In the corner of his eye he saw a dead Gold lying a few feet further down the alley with a clean bullet wound between the man’s eyes. But what horrified the Black Paladin the most was the realization of just how young this poor girl was.

 _She looks almost the same age as Pidge,_ he thought to himself, fighting the urge to dry heave onto the pavement. _Maybe younger._ He stopped when he was in front of her and knelt. Hodling back tears, he reached forward and closed her eyes, offering a silent prayer that the girl’s spirit would find peace.

Shiro didn’t know if he really believed in any higher power. His grandfather had tried to instill a sense of faith and spirituality in him when he was younger, but Shiro had never really taken to it. He’d clung to a few prayers when he and the Holts were first taken from Kerberos, finding comfort in the familiar to keep himself going. But the longer the living hell of his captivity had dragged on, the less faith he had in anything. Even after being rescued by Ulaz and everything that had come after, he still doubted. But now, he clung to his grandfather’s beliefs like a drowning man. It was the only thing keeping him sane amid the chaos and bloodshed around him. He had thought he’d seen the worst of Aureate warfare three weeks ago during the Siege of Mars. Even Whitehold and his escape from the Triumph hadn’t been as bad as the landmine spikes Darrow had used on Europa. But arriving in Corinth made him realize that all the violence he’d seen had only been the tip of the iceberg.

He snapped out of his thoughts when he felt hands on his forearm and shoulders. He looked up to see Keith and Tactus each with a hand on one of his shoulders, while the Red Paladin’s other hand was on Shiro’s datapad, having just turned off the pulseShield embedded in his armor. Shiro took a deep breath as he got back to his feet. Tactus had seen plenty of horror at the Institute. Shiro could only imagine the kind of horrors Keith had seen that let him keep a stoic expression on his face at the sight of something like this. But considering he’d found his friend wearing a Blade of Marmora uniform, he could probably guess.

Pushing those thoughts aside for now, he nodded to let them know he’d be alright before reactivating his armor’s shields. The armored column resumed its march toward the rebel command post through the war-torn city streets. They passed dozens more bodies on their way, and Shiro did his best to avert his gaze. He needed to stay focused on the goal.

Finally, they arrived at the rebel command center inside an abandoned warehouse in the middle of one of the city’s midColor districts. Even during this lull in the fighting, the makeshift base was a beehive of activity divided into four main sections.

“What’s our status?” Tactus asked as they reached the makeshift war room.

“Quiet for now, dom- sir.” The Violet answered, hastily correcting herself from using the honorific used by other Colors to address their Gold masters. Tactus had told Shiro on the way how most of the new volunteers were still getting used to not having to use the term. “We’re at a stalemate right now. Terranova’s arrival gave us the momentum to take the rest of the districts, but now the loyalists have barricaded themselves inside the spaceport. We’ve repelled their attempts to claim the other districts, and they’ve shot down any who try to get inside the spaceport. Now that we control most of the city, volunteers are being dispatched to repair municipal services and recover the bodies of the fallen.”

“Good,” Shiro commented before he glanced at Tactus. “Do you have a plan for getting inside the spaceport?”

“I was hoping you’d have one,” Tactus commented. “You know me, love. You and Reaper are the ones who write the music, I just play it.”  He smirked at that, and the Black Paladin couldn’t help but chuckle at the reference. Since his family had cut him off, Tactus was almost completely unrecognizable from the sardonic hedonist Shiro had met six months ago on Luna. He still teased his friends, but there was a warmth and affection that hadn’t been there before, and the others were noticing it as well. None of them had completely forgiven Tactus for his betrayal on Luna, but they were slowly starting to come around.

“Well,” Shiro replied, bringing himself back to the task at hand. “First I need to know how heavily defended the spaceport is. Are there any entrances that they don’t have guarded?”

“Just the air vents,” the Violet in charge of the base answered. “The slavers learned their lesson from their attack on the sewage plant. They’re not going to jeopardize critical systems unless absolutely necessary.”

“How small are the vents?” Shiro asked, memories of old movies and tv shows giving him ideas for how to get inside. “Could a person fit in one of them?” The woman frowned for a moment before checking her datapad.

“Obsidians and the commander here are too big. Reds and Pinks might fit. Maybe some of the Browns if we’re lucky.” She paused and gestured to Keith. “Your friend there would fit. If we can get someone, maybe even a small team, in through the vents, they could plant a few landmine spikes as a diversion to draw their attention away from the main entrance and open the doors, then our troops can storm the spaceport.” Shiro paled as he turned to look at Keith, images of all the things that could go wrong flashing through his mind. What she was asking him to do….

“I’ll do it,” Keith interjected, snapping Shiro out of his thoughts. “I’ll get inside and open up the entrance.” The Black Paladin immediately remembered the last time Keith had volunteered for a similar infiltration six months ago (from his perspective at least. Keith still hadn’t gone into detail on how much time had passed for Voltron after his disappearance).

“Keith…” Shiro began, but his friend cut him off.

“Shiro,” Keith said. “I’ve done this before. You know I can do this.” Shiro bit his lip and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath to steady himself. He wanted so badly to tell Keith no, to tell him to stay back at the base where he’d be safe. But he knew that there was no good option here. The base was just as likely to be attacked by loyalist reinforcements. Keith was no safer here than he’d be at the spaceport. And Keith was right, this was almost exactly like the time he’d infiltrated Zarkon’s central command months ago. And Shiro had agreed then because he knew that it was Keith’s choice, and he trusted his friend’s judgement.

But being thrown into the future had left Shiro unbalanced. He’d spent months in a pit of self-loathing over his inability to do anything significant about the oppression he saw happening around him daily. He’d hated himself for putting his cover over doing what was right, never mind that exposing himself would have gotten Mustang killed and himself dissected, leaving Darrow and the rebellion worse off than they were now. He’d gotten over most of it when he found out Darrow’s secret and started helping Tactus with his own issues, but the guilt still lingered. Not to mention the fact that the last four months had been nothing but war and politics, and the long voyages between planets had been wearing down on him, a constant reminder of all that he’d lost when he’d been thrown forward to this era.

And then he found out that Keith was here too, and suddenly he felt stable again, having an anchor to ground him. All Shiro had left of his past was his Paladin armor, and now Keith. But seeing the mutilated corpses in back alleys all over Corinth made Shiro realize just how easy it was to lose his best friend again. At least when they were fighting Zarkon’s empire they had a general idea of what they were facing. But Aureate warfare was brutal and unpredictable. There was no telling if Keith would even survive long enough to complete the mission.

“I know you can,” Shiro finally said. “But I’m still coming with you. We’re Paladins of Voltron, Keith. We either win together or die together.” Keith looked conflicted for a moment. Shiro imagined his friend was torn between frustration at seemingly not being trusted, and relief that he’d at least have someone familiar watching his back. It only lasted for a few seconds before Keith nodded his head.

“Fair enough,” Keith replied. Shiro almost jumped when a loud clap interrupted them.

“Glad that’s settled then,” Tactus interjected. “I’ll bring you two some scarabSkin and ghostCloaks, then we’ll go over the route before you go.” Shiro nodded and gave his boyfriend a hug before he and Keith turned and headed over to the side of the warehouse where all the weapons were being stored. As they walked, he leaned in towards Keith.

“It’s not that I don’t trust you,” he whispered. “It’s just that I don’t want to risk losing you like this. Gold warfare is a whole different playing field compared to fighting Zarkon’s empire, and other than Tactus, you’re all I have left.”

“I get it,” Keith commented. “I just still feel weird about you stepping in like that.” Shiro frowned. His brow furrowed in confusion. _Stepping in…_ he thought to himself. _What is he talking about?_

“What do you mean?” the Black Paladin asked. Keith looked nervous, like he wasn’t sure whether he should tell Shiro or not.

“It’s a long story,” Keith finally answered. Shiro raised an eyebrow.

“We’ve got a few minutes,” Shiro noted as he removed the pulseFist from his left arm and started removing his pulseArmor piece by piece. For a few minutes, the warehouse was silent but for the sounds of wounded rebels being tended to in the makeshift triage tent in the middle of the warehouse. After a few minutes of swapping out their weapons for gear better suited for a stealth mission, the younger Paladin broke the silence.

“A few weeks after our battle with Zarkon,” Keith began, taking a deep breath. “We found an abandoned Galra fighter drifting through space… with you inside.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, the chapter title is a reference to the penultimate episode of Voltron Season 2. I was originally going to call this chapter "Lull", but when I decided to include that bit at the end and realized the parallels to the episode in question, I decided to go with a more meaningful chapter title.


	16. The Red

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More blood and gore this chapter, and also one that's very book compliant, albeit modified significantly to account for removing references to things that haven't happened yet in this fic.

####  _Lion of Mars_ Officers’ Suites

#### Martian Orbit

#### March 16th, 2841

 _This wasn’t how this was supposed to go,_ Mustang thought to herself as she fought to keep her face neutral while she watched everything unfolding in front of her. Cassius had stuffed her and Darrow, along with Sevro’s corpse into the container that had been meant for Cassius. After he freed the other prisoners, the Loyalist Golds escaped the ship without interference. Once they were clear of the ship, Cassius contacted Aja to notify her that he had the leaders of the Rising in custody, and after securing Aja’s promise that Mustang would not be harmed, he’d been instructed to dock with the _Lion of Mars_.

Her brother had personally escorted Cassius and the three of them from the _Lion of Mars_ ’ main hangar up to the Sovereign in the Augustan flaghship’s officers’ suites. But not without cutting off Darrow’s right hand as a trophy of revenge. The Loyalists had been broadcasting her and Darrow’s capture to the fleet nonstop to demoralize the Red Armada and quell the uprising on Mars. They would do the same with Darrow’s execution and Sevro’s body. Mustang wondered if they would do the same with her despite the deal Cassius thought he had struck.  _Look what befalls those who rise against, they’ll say,_ Mustang thought to herself. _Look how even these mighty beasts fall before Gold. Who else can stand against them? No one._ Their grip would tighten. Their reign would strengthen.

If they lost today, a new generation of Gold would rise with vigor unseen since the fall of Earth. They would see the threat to their people and they would breed creatures like Aja and her brother by the thousands. They would build new institutes, expand their military, and throttle Darrow’s people. That was the future that could be, the one that Sevro’s father feared the most. The one Mustang and Darrow were afraid was coming as her brother moved past them into the main room of the stateroom. After listening to the Sovereign discuss battle strategy with her advisers and Cassius telling her what he knew of their plans, it was Darrow’s turn to be executed.

Mustang watched as Aja dragged Darrow to the Sovereign’s feet at the center of the holopad off the main bedroom of the suite that her father had commissioned when the ship was first built. The cold sneer of command was etched deeply into the tyrant’s marble face. Her shoulders were clearly weary, though, pressed down by the weight of an empire and the shadowy mass of a hundred years of sleepless nights.

“Remove his muzzle,” Octavia commanded Aja, who stood behind Darrow, preparing to administer the Sovereign’s justice. The Truth Knight and the Joy Knight flanked Octavia, while Cassius stood over Mustang to the side of the holopad, his prisoner greens clearly standing out among the Praetorians while Adrius watched from a chair against the wall, sipping a coffee brought by the valet. Mustang watched Darrow stretch his jaw as the buzzle came off.

“Imagine a world without the arrogance of the young,” Octavia said to her fury.

“Imagine a world without the greed of the old,” Darrow retorted hoarsely. Aja slammed the side of her head with her fist. Mustang winced.

“Why’d you take his muzzle off if you want him to be silent?” she asked.

“Because the last time we want everyone to know this is really him,” Octavia answered. “We don’t want everyone to think we’re merely executing a puppet. This is flesh and blood. The Red who rose. I want them to know it is he who falls. I want them to know that even their best is insignificant.” She turned to the Joy Knight who was at the controls of the holodeck, preparing her broadcast. “Is it ready?”

“Yes, my liege,” the Joy Knight replied. “Greens have restored the links. It’ll go out live to the Core.”

“Say your goodbyes to the Red… _Mustang_ ,” Aja sneered, patting the Augustus heiress’ head.

“May I do it, my Sovereign?” Her brother asked, rising from his seat and walking to the holodeck. “I know that Olympic Knights carry out executive executions, but it was my efforts that unmasked the abomination. Since it was my plans that lead to him being here this day, I believe I should be the one to strike the final blow.” Aja bared her teeth, but the Sovereign’s hand on her shoulder restrained her tongue.

“Let him do it,” the Sovereign said. Reluctantly, Aja moved away from Darrow. The Joy Knight offered Adrius a scorcher, but he refused. Instead, he picked Sevro’s gun from her holster and twirled it around her index finger.

“He’s no Gold,” Adrius explained. “He doesn’t deserve a razor or a state death. Plus, offing Darrow with Sevro’s gun is more poetic, don’t you think?” He took Aja’s place beside Darrow as the Sovereign transformed before the eyes of those present. Mustang watched as the exhaustion burned from Octavia’s face as she adopted the serene, matronly visage she remembered seeing in official broadcasts. The Joy Knight nodded to the Sovereign. A light glowed softly above her, empowering the woman with the fury and warmth of the sun. It was just a spotlight, but the lamp deepened its glow. The broadcast began.

“Men and women of the Society,” Ocatavia said. “This is your Sovereign. Since the dawn of man, our saga as a species has been one of tribal warfare. It has been one of trial, one of sacrifice, one of darying to defy nature’s natural limits. Then, after years of toiling in the dirt, we rose to the stars. We bound ourselves in duty. We sed aside our own wants, our own hungers to embrace the Hierarchy of Color, not to oppress the many for the glory of the few as Ares and this… terrorist would have you believe, but to secure the immortality of the human race on principles of order and prosperity. It was an immortality that was assured before this man tried to steal it from us.” She paused to point a long, elegant finger at Darrow.

“This man, once a noble servant of you, of your families, should have been the brightest son of his Color. He was lifted up as a youth. Awarded merits of honor. But he chose vanity. To extend his own ego across the stars. He forgot his duty. He forgot the reason for order and has fallen into darkness, dragging the worlds with him. But we will not fall into that darkness. No. We will not bend to the force of evil.” She touched her heart.

“We… _We_ are the Society. We are Gold, Silver, Copper, Blue, White, Orange, Green, Violet, Yellow, Gray, Brown, Pink, Obsidian, and Red. The bonds that bind us together are stronger than the forces that pull us apart. For seven hundred years, Gold has shepherded humanity, brought light where there was dark, plenty where there was famine. Today, we bring peace where there is war. But to have peace, we must destroy outright this murderer who has brought war to each and every one of our homes.” She turned to Darrow with a callousness that reminded Mustang of how she watched his duel with Cassius. How she would have let him die then sipped her wine and went about her dinner. He was a speck to her, even now. She was thinking past this moment. Past the time where his blood cooled on the floor and they dragged him off to be dissected.

“Darrow of Lykos,” she said imperiously. “But the power entrusted in me by the Compact, I hereby find you guilty of conspiracy to incite acts of terror.” Mustang watched her fiancé stare directly into the holoCam’s optic lens, knowing how many countless souls watched him now. How many countless eyes would watch him long after he was gone. “I find you guilty of mass murder upon the citizens of Mars,” the Sovereign continued. “I find you guilty of murder. And I find you guilty of treason against your Society…” As Octavia recited her sentence, as Mustang kneeled on the ground, as Cassius and Thistle watched him from among the Praetorians and Knights, and as Aja saw him look to the tall blond Olympic, stepping forward in trepidation because she knew something was wrong, Darrow threw back his head and howled.

Mustang smiled, knowing that Darrow howled for his late wife, and for his father. For all the people he had lost, and all that Octavia would take. The man she loved howled because he was a Helldiver of Lykos. He was the Reaper of Mars. He had paid for access to this room with his flesh, all so he could come before Octavia, that he might either die with his friends or see their enemies brought to justice. The Sovereign nodded to Adrius to execute the sentence. He pressed the barrel to the back of Darrow’s head and squeezed the trigger. The gun kicked in her hands. Fire spat, scorching Darrow’s scalp. But he did not fall. No bullet carved through his head. Smoke swirled out of the barrel. And as her brother looked down at the gun, Mustang knew that he knew. 

“No…” he whispered in shock as he stepped away from Darrow, dropping the gun and trying to pull out his razor.

“Octavia…” Aja shouted, lunging forward. But just then, in that beat of the heart, the Sovereign heard something behind the camera and turned to see a Praetorian guard with his head tilted, his pulseRifle thumping to the floor as a grisly red tong protruded from his mouth. Only it wasn’t a tongue. It was Cassius’ bloody razor that entered through the back of the Praetorian’s skull and out between his teeth. It disappeared back into the mouth. The Truth and Joy Knight collapsed lifelessly on the ground, their heads rolling forward. The three guards and two Olympic Knights fell before the Sovereign could say a bloodydamn word. Cassius stood behind the slaughtered men, his head lowered, and his razor red. Cassius’ left hand held the remote control to Darrow and Mustang’s restraints.

“Bellona?” was all the Sovereign could say before he pressed the button. Mustang’s steel vest unbuckled and fell to the ground while Darrow’s followed suit. Without hesitation, Mustang dove for a dead Praetorian’s pulseRifle, while Darrow rose, unshackled, jerking his arms free and pulling the knife hidden inside the metal vest. He lunged towards the Sovereign. Faster than she could blink, he jammed the blade through her black jacket into the softness of her lower belly. She gasped, her eyes huge, inches from Darrow’s as he stabbed her six more times in the gut and on the last, ripped the metal up toward her sternum. Hot blood poured over Darrow’s knuckles and chest as the Sovereign spilled open. 

“Octavia!” Aja screamed as she charged at the Reaper. She only made it halfway before Mustang, firing from her knees, shot the Protean Knight in the armored side with her pulseRifle. The blast lifted Aja of her feet, slapping her across the room into the wooden conference table beside Sevro and Antonia’s bodies, nearly crushing Lysander. Adrius tried to slash at Darrow, but he took his own razor and staked the Jackal’s left arm to the floor so that he had no free hand. He screamed and thrashed at Darrow with his legs before he dropped a knee into the other man’s forehead and left him stunned and pinned to the floor.

“Darrow!” Cassius called out as he and Mustang ran towards the Reaper. “Behind!” Behind Darrow, Aja rose from the shattered remains of the table, her eyes widened with rage. Darrow ran back towards Cassius and Mustang, aware that she would kill him in seconds with his right hand gone. Blood splatters coated Cassius’s green jumpsuit. Mustang grabbed two razors from the dead Praetorians and tossed one to Darrow. She sighed in relief when he caught it on the run with his left hand and toggled the hilt. The razor leaped to killing length as Mustang rushed to his side. She swept her golden mess of hair back, a fevered grin splitting her face as Cassius and Thistle caught up.

“How was my acting?” he asked.

“Not quite as good as your sword work,” Darrow said as he took in the bodies around them. Cassius grinned, clearly more alive in battle than anywhere else. Mustang knew that Darrow missed fighting alongside the Bellona heir, missed the days where they rode together in the highlands of the Institute pretending they were lords of the Earth. Mustang saw Darrow grin back and knew that for the first time in a while, her fiancé felt whole.

“Will you two save the flirting for later?” she asked teasingly before, side by side, they turned together to face the deadliest human being in the Solar System. Aja was crouched over a terribly wounded Octavia, who had crawled to the edge of the holodeck and panted on her back, holding her stomach together with both hands. Octavia was pale and shivering. Tears streamed down Aja’s face, and Lysander’s, who had rushed into the pit to help his grandmother. Lilath screamed from the floor for Aja to open the door as she thrashed around, trying to reach the whip toggle on the razor with her stump. But it was three and a half feet above her and she just couldn’t quite reach.

But to open the door, she had to reach it, and to reach it, she had to go through Mustang, Darrow, and Cassius, then present her back to them while she entered the code. She was trapped in there until either they were dead, or she was.

“Aja,” give us the Sovereign,” Darrow said. “Her justice is due.” They all knew what Aja’s reply to that would be, but Mustang knew that the holodeck was still active, and Darrow was aware that it was still broadcasting as Gold blood wetted the floor. Aja didn’t turn to look at them yet. Her huge hand caressed Ocatvia’s face, cradling the older woman like a mother holding her own child.

“Stay alive,” they heard her say to her Sovereign. “I will get you out of here. I promise. Just stay alive, Octavia.”

“Wear her down,” Mustang whispered as Lysander touched Aja’s arm. “She’s the one with the ticking clock.”

 “Don’t let her pin you in a corner,” Darrow said. “Move laterally like we planned. Cassius, can you still take point?”

“Just try to keep up,” he said with a smile.

“Keep her busy,” Darrow instructed, and Mustang glanced at him, silently making sure that he still had what he needed for what he was about to do. Darrow glanced back and inclined his head in a nod of confirmation. Across from them, Aja rose from her crouch to her full height, a brooding mass of muscle and armor, the greatest student of the greatest razormaster the Society had ever known. The woman’s face was dark and unreadable, the deep blue Protean armor moved subtly with sea dragons, her shoulders nearly as broad as Ragnar. A meter and a half of killing silver slithered out before Aja as she took the winter stance of the Willow Way, sword raised like a torch off to the side, her left foot forward, hips sunken, and knees slightly bent. Mustang and Darrow slid apart as he wheeled around and took off toward the other side of the room. Mustang took the right, and Cassius, the best swordsman out of the four of them, took the middle after pulling a syringe from the holster on his leg and tossing it to Darrow.

“You cannot run!” Aja shouted to Darrow. “I will carve your eyes out. There’s nowhere to run, you rusty coward!” But Darrow was not running. As Darrow crouched beside Sevro’s motionless form, Aja attacked. She had two options when fighting against multiple opponents. The first was to use them against one another, but Cassius and Darrow had always been of one mind in battle, and Mustang was adaptable. So, the Protean Knight chose the second option, an all-out attack on Darrow before Cassius or Mustang could come to his aid. Darrow was the weakest opponent with his missing hand, but the others barred her path.

“How could you choose him over us?” Aja shouted in rage to Mustang and Cassius The three of them clashed in a two-on-one frenzy of razors and whips. She activated her gravBoots in a quick burst and launched at Cassius, two kilograms of armor and Peerless Scarred crashing into flesh and bones. Mustang winced as she heard his skeleton creak. Cassius’ body wrapped around Aja’s forehead and smashed against her armored shoulder. He dripped off her and she spiked him to the ground like a volleyball.

“Easily,” Mustang replied as she rushed Aja’s flank to stop her from finishing Cassius off. But the Fury was expecting the rush and used Cassius to bait her. Aja slashed mustang shallowly across the stomach, nearly opening her lower intestine. The Sovereign’s face was distant and fading as she watched the battle, propped up against the lip of the holodeck as it rose to the rest of the room, her grandson’s hands holding her together. Aja looked at her in fear, knowing her liege didn’t have long to live. Then her leg shot out at Mustang, impacting her kneecap and jamming it backwards. Mustang bit back a scream of pain as her knee dislocated and she stumbled back, razor outstretched as Aja turned back to Cassius. Suddenly, the keening of razors on the holodeck was interrupted when a high-pitched scream filled the air.

“Fuuuuuuuuck!” cursed the familiar voice of the original Howler.

  _O_ _h, good,_ Mustang thought to herself with a smirk. _Sevro’s finished playing dead._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And with that, we're one step closer to getting past the book events I'm keeping for this fic. As fellow Red Rising fans will notice, I'm significantly moved up the final battle of the original trilogy, and we haven't even had an appearance from the Moon Lords yet. This is intentional. Iron Gold gave me a tone of ideas for where to take this fic, and I wanted to get Octavia and Aja out of the way sooner so that I could have more room to explore them.


	17. What'd I Miss?

#### Corinth

**Mars**

#### March 16 th, 2841

The three of them were silent as they moved through the streets of Corinth. With the rebellion holding control of all the city except the blocks immediately surrounding the spaceport, Keith, Shiro, and Tactus leaped from rooftop to rooftop on gravBoots as they made their way to their entrance point. Ghost cloaks hid them from view, invisible to the naked eye and most sensors. Compared to the heavy durability of pulseArmor, Keith felt naked wearing the scarabSkin mesh that now covered his body. He could understand why Shiro was reluctant to let him go by himself if this was the best armor that he could wear and still fit through the vents.

As they moved, he thought back to when he had told Shiro about everything that had happened since his disappearance. It had only been an hour since that conversation, but with how much preparation they’d done for the mission since then, it felt like ages in some ways. Shiro’s reaction had only confused Keith further. How had his friend gone from twenty-ninth century Mars back to the mid twenty-first century, when Keith hadn’t even travelled to the latter era yet. It was starting to give him a migraine just thinking about it, and Shiro had wisely suggested locking that speculation in a box until they knew more about how they were going to get home.

The spot on his back above his tailbone felt warm from the battery of an active ghostCloak, the film-like texture filtering his vision as he and Shiro made their way closer to their entry point. Each gravity-defying leap through the air brought with it the fear that they would be discovered and shot down, and Keith didn’t dare breathe until it was absolutely necessary. Each landing was handled with delicacy and care, to avoid disturbing the backpacks full of explosives the time-travelling Paladins each carried.

After what felt like forever, they finally landed in front of the vent that would lead them inside. GhostCloaks flickered off as they touched down on the rooftop. As Keith double checked his pack to make sure the charges were secure, he noticed Shiro and Tactus whispering quietly to each other before the two men parted ways with a kiss. While he was happy Shiro had found someone, the fact that, again his friend never mentioned his significant other who, from the sound of things, had every intention of coming back to the Castle of Lions with them, was another question. _Patience yields focus,_ Keith reminded himself, forcing thoughts of the past out of his mind once more. It was showtime.

Since Keith was the smaller of the two of them, he went into the ventilation shaft first, followed by Shiro. It was a bit of a tight squeeze for the Black Paladin to climb through the vents, but Shiro was just limber enough to crawl in after Keith without much difficulty. The two crawled through the vents in silence. The jamFields they carried kept any noise they made in the vents from echoing out and revealing their presence. But at the same time, it also meant that they couldn’t hear anything happening in the spaceport itself.

The air vents were like a maze as they crawled through the ducts. One of the benefits of being half-Galra, Keith had found, was that his eyes adapted easily to reduced light. Shiro had to don a pair of thermal optics to keep track of him in the darkness of the vents, so Keith was glad he didn’t have to wear any. After twenty minutes of crawling and at least three vertical shafts they’d had to carefully slide down, they found a grate they could open. Keith looked through the grate to see if he could find any guards.

“No guards,” he whispered over his shoulder. “Can’t see any cameras.”

"Take the optics,” Shiro whispered back after a few seconds, and handed him the bulky set of goggles. “I just switched it to scan for nanocams.” Keith gave a thumbs’ up in acknowledgement before taking the optics. As he slid them over his face, his normal vision was replaced by a computerized view of the room that saw through the walls to display power lines, water pipes, and internet cables. Very carefully, Keith directed his gaze from every angle he could reach. After nothing in sight of the grate pinged a response from the optics, he unsheathed his knife and gently pried the vent cover open.

Moving slowly, he held the grate delicately in his hands as he inched forward out of the air ducts. Once his face was clear of the vent, he craned his neck to look in all of the places he hadn’t been able to see from inside the duct. The optics scanned each for signs of microscopic cameras, but there was no response.

“No cameras,” he told Shiro. “Coast is clear.” With that, he gently lowered the grate to the ground before bracing his hands on the walls to pull himself out of the vent. Shiro wriggled out shortly afterwards, and the older man reached down to grab the fallen sheet of metal. Keith stripped the optics off his head and handed them back to his friend. 

“We’d better make sure no one figures out how we got it,” Shiro commented as he replaced the vent cover. The Black Paladin held his right arm out for a moment, about to use the energy weapon in his hand to melt the metal grate back into place. Keith waited for the tell-tale glow of Shiro’s arm, but it never came. After a few seconds, Shiro’s shoulders sagged.

“Right,” the older Paladin sighed. “I forgot I don’t have that any more.” Keith frowned in confusion. Keith chuckled weakly. He’d forgotten about that too.  As horrible as what the Galra Empire had done to Shiro was, his cybernetic arm had become something that everyone on the team had unconsciously associated with him. Keith knew how much Shiro had hated it and was glad that Shiro no longer had the weight of what it represented on his shoulders, but losing the utility of what it could do in situations like this was clearly taking them both some getting used to.

“Just leave it for now,” Keith said. “It’s not like it’ll matter. We can send in a welder to fix it once we’ve secured the objective.” Shiro nodded and gently put the cover back on the floor before disappearing in a flicker of vanishing light as his ghostCloak activated. Keith engaged his own a moment later, and together the duo slipped out the door and into the hallway.

With their boots calibrated for lighter gravity, the two paladins moved like ghosts as they sprinted through the halls. Nostalgia welled up in Keith as he remembered the hijinks he and Shiro had gotten up to at the Garrison back before Kerberos, as well as his time running infiltration missions with the Blade of Marmora. The familiarity was reassuring as they raced through the unfamiliar spaceport, relying on directional signs and memorized schematics to guide them toward their target.

They encountered minimal resistance as they flowed through the complex, stopping periodically to switch on the jammers and conserve the battery packs of their ghostCloaks. With the ruling Aureate panicking over the rising tide of revolution, security inside the spaceport itself was lax, the wealthy elite more concerned with evacuating the city as quickly as possible. The few times they did encounter security forces, Shiro quickly dispatched them with his razor. The kills were quick, quiet, and bloodless, and the Black Paladin took care to leave no trace of the guards’ death when they moved on from that spot and took the jamField with them.

Keith had almost gagged the first time he’d seen Shiro slit a man’s throat in close-quarters combat. He didn’t know whether it was the fact that most Galra installations were crewed by Sentries, or the fact that these soldiers were all human, but the sight of such cold, efficient killing from Shiro chilled him to the bone. And the most unnerving part was how calm Shiro could act about it. Shiro had already told Keith how he really felt about it, but still, that level of stoicism was something Keith expected from the Blade of Marmora, not his best friend.

 _You and Shiro can talk about that later,_ he chided himself as they reached the security center that held the controls for the spaceport’s doors. Shiro counted down silently with his fingers before he kicked the door in and led them into the room to find five green-haired technicians sitting at a horseshoe-shaped bank of computer terminals. Thankfully, Shiro didn’t need to do any killing, as two of the Greens tackled the rest of their colleagues and raised their fists above their head in a gesture of support for the rebellion. Shiro thanked them for their support and told them to open the gates so that rebel forces could storm the building. That done, Shiro gave Tactus the order to attack.

With the battle once more underway, Shiro and Keith took up positions by the door, ready to shoot any Golds attempting to re-seal the doors. The building rocked with the force of an explosion as Shiro saw the Sons of Ares on the security monitor leading a mob of lowColors into the building. Eo’s song echoed over the speakers, chanted from a thousand throats as the oppressed masses stormed into the spaceport. As they watched the masses flow into the facility, Keith had an idea.

“Can you play this on all the speakers in the building?” he asked the Greens. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Shiro stiffen as the Black Paladin realized what he had in mind.

“They’ll know we’re here if we do,” one of the technicians answered. She glanced back at her partner, who nodded his head in silent agreement. “Of, fuck it,” she said as she pressed a few keys on her terminal and flipped a switch. “Let’s pour some fuel on the gorydamn fire.” Keith smiled in anticipation as he and Shiro heard the song echoing on the other side of the door.

That thrill faded to a grim determination as they saw a trio of Gray legionnaires on the security monitors head towards their position. _Time to hold the line,_ he thought to himself as he turned to Shiro and nodded.

“We’ll take care of it,” the older man told the Greens before the two Paladins stepped back out into the corridor. Keith and Shiro quickly checked their weapons and activated their ghostCloaks. _This must be what Harry Potter’s Cloak of Invisibility feels like,_ Keith thought to himself with a nostalgic smile as he and Shiro waited for the enemy troops to arrive. A steady stream of com chattered in his ear as the two technicians in the room behind them kept them appraised of the enemy’s progress. The legionnaires were close enough now that the two Paladins could hear them around the corner. Keith readied the laser gun – _scorcher_ , he reminded himself of the correct terminology – at his side when he heard gunfire from around the corner. Had Shiro’s boyfriend sent them reinforcements?

“What’s happening?” Shiro asked as the gunfire was silenced by the sound of throats being slit.

“Ruster lady just showed up with a ghostCloak and started killing the Grays,” one of the Greens reported.

“One of ours?” Keith inquired as he glanced at Shiro.

“Negative,” the technician replied. Beside Keith, Shiro immediately tensed. As the sounds of enemy soldiers chocking out their last breaths died out, the woman stepped out from behind the door with her hands above her head, a pulseDagger in her left. The left side of her face was beautiful, but the right was a ragged mess of burned skin. Her crimson eyes burned with hatred as she looked at them, though Keith quickly realized that her gaze was directed at the man beside him. He was about to tell her to identify herself when Shiro opened up his pulseFist and fired.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's right, Howlers. Harmony is back! I'm still working out the details of what I have planned for her, but I wanted to bring her into the story since she hasn't been seen (other than a nameless cameo in Iron Gold) since the beginning of Golden Son, and was only mentioned in Morning Star.


	18. Omnis Vir Lupus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I posted two chapters today so go read the previous one before you read this one. 
> 
> This chapter is another book-quoting one, but after this there's only one more book-compliant chapter before we go completely off the rails from canon.

####  _Invictus_ Officers’ Suites

#### Martian Orbit

#### March 16th, 2841

Sevro flailed past Darrow, exploding upward out of the coma induced by the haemanthus oil in the flask he’d been drinking from before they had freed Cassius. Sevro quickly gained his feet, looking around with manic, wild eyes, hands vibrating, holding his heart and gasping in pain. The last thing he’d seen was Darrow’s in the brig, and now he’d awoken here to be thrust into the battle, blood and bodies littering the floor. Sevro stared at the Reaper with crazed, bloodshot eyes, pointing at his friend’s bell

“You’re bleeding!” the Howler exclaimed. “Darrow! You’re bleeding!”

“I know,” he replied.

“Where is your hand?” Sevro asked frantically. “You’re missing a fucking hand!”

“I know!” Darrow shouted.

“Bloodydamn,” Sevro cursed as his eyes darted around and took in the sight of Lilath pinned and Octavia on the ground while Aja beat back Cassius and Mutang. “It worked!” he said. “It fucking worked! We’ve got to help the Goldbrows, shithead. Get up! Get up!” Sevro hauled Darrow to his feet and shoved the razor back into his hand before rushing onto the holopdeck, howling the hideous battlecry they’d made as children among the frozen pines of the Institute.

“I’m going to kill you, Aja!” Sevro screamed. “I’m going to kill you in your face!”

“It’s Barca!” The Jackal screamed from the ground. “Barca’s alive!” As he ran, Sevro scooped up a pulseFist from a dead Praetorian and trampled over Adrius’s body, stomping on his face as he grabbed the razor that pinned the Jackal to the ground without stopping. Next Sevro flew into Aja, firing with the pulseFist, insane with the drugs and the victory he could smell. The pulse blasts rippled over Aja’s shield, spreading crimson around her silhouette and impairing her vision enough to finally let Cassius slip his razor through her guard. Still, she twisted as it came so it only took her in the shoulder. But then Sevro was on her, stabbing her twice in the small of her back. The Protean Knight grunted in pain as she backed away.

Daarrow joined the fray as Aja stumbled back from her attackers. But on the ground behind her, she left something few humans had seen: a thin ribbon of blood, coating Sevro’s razor. The Howler wiped it from the tip of the blade and smeared it between his fingers.

“Hahaha,” Sevro laughed. “Well look at that. You do bleed. Let’s see how much more ya got in there.” He hunched like an animal, stalking ftoward her as Mustang, Cassius, and Darrow pinned her between them, making a square around the greatest living Olympic Knight like a wolfpack coming upon a great panther of the forest, shrinking before it as it charged, striking at its hindquarters, slashing at its flanks, bleeding it out. They were a prison of four, and Sevro swished his razor through the air, howling rabidly.

“Shut up!” Aja snapped as she lashed out at the Howler. But Sevro danced back while Cassius and Darrow darted forward and stabbed at her. She parried Cassius’s thrust at her neck and his next two moves, but not in time to counter the Reaper. Darrow feigned a thrust at her abdomen and slashed her shin instead, raking through the metal. Sparks and bloody coated Darrow’s blade as Mustang stabbed the woman’s calf. Darrow darted back as Aja wheeled on him, making her overextend so Sevro could strike again. Cassius furiously slashed the Achilles tendon on Aja’s right leg. The Protean Knight grunted and stumbled before lashing at her attacker, but the Howler danced back.

“You’re gonna die,” Sevro said with an evil little hiss. “You’re gonna die.”

“Shut up!” Aja screamed.

“That one’s for Lorn,” Sevro retorted as Cassius cut through the tendons of her left knee. “This one’s for Mars,” he added as Darrow imped her right thigh with an underhanded thrust. Mustang took the older woman’s arm off at the elbow. Aja looked down at the appendage on the ground, as if wondering if it belonged to her. But she was given no respite. Sevro tossed aside his pulseFist, picked up the Truth Knight’s razor from the ground and jumped into the air to bring both his swords down into her chest, hanging there, a foot off the ground. Their faces were inces from one another, noses nearly touching as Aja sank to her knees, setting Sevro back on his feet.

“Omnis vir lupus,” Sevro whispered as he kissed Aja’s nose and jerked his razors out of her chest, letting the blades slither back into whips around his forearms. With his arms outstretched, Sevro backed away from the dying Protean Knight, greatest of her generation as she pulsed her last blood onto the cold floor. Still on her knees, Aja’s eyes drifted hopelessly towards the Sovreign, the woman who had become mother to her sisters, had raisedr, loved her as truly as any who ruled the Solar System could love, and now would die along with her. Darrow felt a small stab of pity for the two women. Despite the evil they perpetuated, they both cared for each other.

“I’m sorry… my liege,” Aja wheezed between wet breaths.

“Never be,” Octavia managed from her place on the ground. “You burned bright, my Fury. Time itself… will remember you.”

“Nah, prolly not,” Sevrro said pitilessly, causing Darrow to wince from his friend’s lack of tact. “Nighty night, Grimmus.” And with that, the original Howler lopped off Aja’s head and kicked her in the chest. Her body teetered back and collapsed to the floor, where Sevro jumped atop it on all fours and howled. A deep moan escaped the Sovereign’s mouth at the hideous sight, and everyone else put their heads in their hands in embarrassment for Sevro’s behavior. Octavia shut her eyes, leaking tears as Darrow and his friends made their way to her.

Darrow and Cassius limped together, the Bellona’s arm around the Reaper’s shoulders to take preassure off the leg he dragged behind him. Mustang and Sevro followed behind after knocking her brother unconscious and making sure he was securely restrained.

Octavia’s eyes were distant and dark, already halfway to that other world where even she does not reign. _I thought there’s be spite in the end from here,_ Darrow thought to himself as he watched the ruler of the solar system bleed out. _Or begging like Antonia._ But there was nothing week in Octavia even now. It was sadness and love that came in the end. She didn’t create the oppressive hierarchy, but she had been its keeper in her time, and for that, she needed to be held accountable.

“Why?” Octavia asked Cassius, shaking from sorrow. “Why?”

“Because you lied,” the Bellona heir answered. Wordlessly, he pulsed a small holocube, a thumb-sized triangular prism, from his ammunition belt and set in in her bloody hands. Images danced across its surfaces before floating into the air above the Sovereign’s hands. The scene of Cassius’ family dying played, bathing her in blue light. Darrow watched silently, having seen it before hours ago when Mustang first explained her plan to use Cassius to get them inside the Sovereign’s perimeter.

“You ask me why?” Cassius asked rhetorically, his voice barely above a whisper. “It is because you are without honor. I swore an oat as an Olympic Knight to honor the Compact, to bring justice to the Society of Man. You swore the same, Octavia. But you forgot what that mean. Everyone has. That is why this world is broken. Maybe the next one can be better.”

“This world is the best we can afford,” Octavia whispered weakly.

“Do you really believe that?” Mustang asked.

“With all my heart,” the Sovereign answered sadly.

“Then I pity you,” the younger woman replied. Darrow could tell that Cassius did too.

“My heart was my brother,” Cassius said as he looked over at Darrow. “And I no longer believe in a world that says he was too weak to deserve life. He would have believed in this. In the hope for something new. For Julian, I can believe that too.” The young Bellona handed the other two holocubes in his pouch to Darrow. The first was the murder of the guests at the Triumph. The second was a reminder to the Rim of what the Sovereign had done. Politics ever rested. Darrow set the two holocubes in the Sovereign’s hands to join the first. A moment later, Rhea glowed before her, a blue and white moon, gorgeous besides its brothers Iapetus and Titan as they orbited Saturn.

Then, over the moon’s north pole, tiny slivers flicked several innocent times, and mushrooms of fire bloomed upon the surface of the blue and white planetoid. As the nuclear fire blazed in the Sovereign’s eyes, Mustang moved aside so Darrow could crouch before the dying woman, speaking softly so she would know that justice, not vengeance, had found her in the end.

“My people have a legend,” Darrow began. “Of a being who stands astride the road leading to the world after. He will judge the wicked from the good. His name is the Reaper. I am not him. I’m just a man. But soon, you will meet him. Soon, he will judge you for all the sins you hold.”

“Sins?” Octavia replied, shaking her head, looking back to the three holos dancing in her hands, mere drops in the ocean of her crimes, her hands closing around them. “These are sacrifices. What it takes to rule. I own them as I own my triumphs. You will see. You will be the same, Conqueror.”

“No,” Darrow answered. “I will not.”

“In the absence of a sun, there can only be darkness,” she retorted. Octavia shuddered, clearly cold now. Darrow fought the urge to put something over her. This woman knew what was being left behind. When she died, the succession struggle would begin, and it would tear Gold apart.

“Someone… someone must rule,” Octavia continued. “Or a thousand years from now, children will ask, ‘Who broke the worlds? Who put the light out,” and their parents will say it was you.” But Darrow already knew this. He knew this when he asked Sevro if he knew how this would end. The former Helldiver refused to replace tyranny with chaos. There had to be order, even if it was a compromise. But he didn’t tell Octavia that. She wallowed painfully a struggle to even breathe.

“You’ll never…” She whispered before her voice faded away. Those were the last words of Octavia au Lune. And as they faded, the fire of Rhea cooled in her eyes and life left a cold pupil surrounded by gold, staring into infinite darkness. Darrow closed her eyes for her, chilled by her passing. The Sovereign of the Society, who had ruled for sixty years, was dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Octavia gets killed earlier here than she does in canon. I've got big plans for the Ash Lord and the Moon Lords and I need to get Octavia out of the way sooner in order to implement them.


	19. Doppelganger

#### Corinth

#### Mars

#### March 16th, 2841

 _I guess we should have expected her to show up in the middle of all this chaos,_ Shiro thought to himself as Harmony slammed against the wall behind her and toppled forward, unconscious. His pulseFist had been set to stun, so she'd only be knocked out for a few hours. The renegade Son of Ares ( _daughter would be more accurate_ , the time traveler idly thought to himself) had disappeared from the rebellion's base shortly before the Jackal's forces raided the place and killed Fitchner. In all the chaos, it seemed that nobody thought to be on the lookout for a Red woman with burn marks across one half of her face. And now here she was in the middle of one of the largest battles going on that day.

"What the Quiznak!?" Keith spluttered. "Shiro… why did you…"

"That's Harmony," Shiro explained. Keith went silent and nodded in understanding. Shiro had given him the rundown on the major figures in the rebellion and the events leading up to their current situation. He'd already told his fellow paladin who Harmony was and the role she'd played in Fitchner's death. While blasting her into a wall with a pulseFist may have been a tad extreme, Shiro wasn't in a very forgiving mood. He'd already heard enough from Sevro and Darrow to know that the chaotic mess he was in right now was the direct result of her actions.  _If she hadn't been so arrogant and stubborn we wouldn't have had so many casualties,_ he thought to himself as he and Keith moved to secure restraints to her wrists and ankles.

After a few minutes of waiting, Tactus finally arrived with reinforcements. While two Sons of Ares took their new prisoner up toward the rebel ships landing in empty docking bays, Keith and Shiro were relieved of their posts by a fresh squad of marines and headed toward the public entrance to rendezvous with Tactus. An uncomfortable silence settled over the pair as they walked through the spaceport. They couldn't openly talk about Voltron until they were somewhere more private, and Keith didn't look like he really wanted to talk about the killing they'd had to do to complete their mission.

With no other conversation to distract himself, Shiro's mind wandered back to what Keith had told him about everything he'd missed since the fight with Zarkon. How Keith had refused to accept the possibility of anyone other than Shiro himself flying the Black Lion for weeks before the team finally convinced him that they had to move on. How a week later, they had found Shiro inside a Galra fighter. How he had apparently been captured and tortured again before who knows how long before escaping and finding his way back to the team. How after coming back the Black Lion had refused to let him pilot it. How he kept critiquing and overruling every decision Keith made.

Hearing about all the things he'd done was making his head hurt. When he first learned from Lorn that he was fated to make it home eventually, he'd hoped he'd return only a short time after the battle with Zarkon. But to find out that the team had been forced to assume he was dead… that still hurt. It made him wish for some way to send a message back in time to let everyone know he was alive.

And then there was the part that confused him. Keith had clearly traveled to the future months after the team had rescued him again. But then, how did that match up? Had they returned to the past, right after the fight with Zarkon, only for Shiro to be captured, leaving two Keiths running around at the same time, the one that had come back from the future biding his time until after the battle of Naxzela to return to the team and make sure everyone knew he was okay? And what about Tactus, who planned on coming with them for a fresh start?

These questions and more swirled around in Shiro's mind like the vortex of a wormhole. But while the scenario he'd outlined for himself seemed plausible, the idea still didn't sit well with him. He was perfectly aware from Keith's reactions and his own self-loathing how much more ruthless he'd become since arriving in this era. But the idea that he was capable of deliberately pushing Keith away from the team just to ensure his friend ended up in the future disgusted him. He couldn't believe he could be that cruel.

He desperately wanted to believe that there was something else going on. He could have had a concussion like the time Ulaz freed him.  _Or I could have been brainwashed by the empire_ , a tiny voice in the back of his mind suggested, recalling countless B-movie sci-fi marathons at the Garrison. He didn't know which option scared him more: that he'd been brainwashed and let go as a sleeper agent whose actions only ended up guaranteeing Keith's arrival on Mars by accident, or that he had said and done all of that of his own free will to engineer his own return from the Society.

He forced those worries into a metaphorical box at the back of his mind as he and Keith reached the spaceport lobby to find Tactus waiting with a mixed-Color squad of rebels, their weapons and armor slick with blood. He couldn't help but chuckle at what a grim sight they all made. His boyfriend pulled him in for a quick kiss before briefing him on the status of their attack. Most civilian Golds had fled into orbit with their yachts, hoping to find safety among the loyalist fleet. But the rest had seen the tide rising against them and surrendered, allowing the Rising to take control of the spaceport with minimal loss of life. With the spaceport secure, rebel forces had full control over Corinth, giving them a stepping stone to secure other island settlements across the Thermic Sea.

Shiro was about to ask what their next assignment was when Tactus' datapad started flashing with an incoming message. Shiro felt a vibration on his forearm and looked down to find a light blinking on his own datapad as well. He frowned as he pulled up the message. It was an open frequency broadcast from the loyalist fleet.  _Why would they…_ his train of thought was abruptly cut off like an old record needle scratch as he saw what message the enemy was broadcasting. Cassius had escaped. Sevro was dead. Darrow and Mustang had been captured.

Shiro blinked, too stunned to even speak. Beside him, Tactus was on the line with Orion, trying to confirm the validity of the enemy's transmission.  _Impossible,_ he tried to tell himself.  _There's no way they could have been so stupid like that._ But he couldn't afford to let doubt and denial cloud his judgement. Jacked into the Sons of Ares' main communications network, he could hear squad leaders across Mars, Phobos and Deimos beginning to panic and demand to know what they were supposed to do. With Darrow and Mustang captured, the rebellion was losing its momentum. There wasn't even time to process the fact that Sevro was gone. Without someone to take charge and coordinate their forces, everything they'd accomplished today would be lost.  _No._ The Black Paladin thought.  _I won't let that happen. We've come too far to let everything slip away now._

"ENOUGH!" he shouted into the com network. "I know we're all scared now. But we are not going to give up. We've come too far to turn back now. We all know how the Reaper plans things. We trust that he and Mustang know what they're doing. He's counting on us to take control of Mars. If we lose focus now, then every drop of blood we've shed to take this planet will have been for nothing. So, do your jobs and worry about rescuing him once we've solidified our hold on the planet. Let's end this. Break the chains!" His last three words were echoed on every channel as sector commanders rallied their troops to keep pushing towards their objectives. He muted them all in his ear as he opened a private channel among the rebellion's inner circle.

"Victra, what's the status of loyalist forces on Phobos?" he asked. Already, the gears in his mind were whirring as he put together their options for a rescue mission.

"Second wave of assault shuttles is taxiing for landing at Skyresh," the Julii heiress replied.

"Get as many men as you can into the ventilation ducts of those hangars," Shiro ordered. "Once the enemy forces leave their shuttles in the hangar, hijack the shuttles and pack them full of all the Sons of Ares we have left. Pilot them towards the  _Invictus_ and use the launch codes to get landing clearance for the ship's hangar bays." He could almost hear the grin on her face as she chuckled in dark amusement at what he had in mind.

"A trojan horse gambit, eh?" she commented enthusiastically. "I like the way you think, darling. I'll get right on it."

"Orion, Roque," he instructed, switching channels as Victra's line went silent. "Box the enemy fleet in and cut off their escape. Monitor stealth ship drive trails if they try to move Darrow and Mustang off the  _Invictus_. Don't let anyone get away."

"Yes sir," the Blue replied, her voice crisp as she signed off. Roque voiced his agreement before closing his channel as well.

"Dancer," he called to the rebel leader. "Get surface-to-air defense turrets reactivated around as many cities as you can. Prioritize Agea, Corinth, Yorkton, Thessalonica, and New Thebes. Whatever happens in orbit, we have to hold the surface until we know more." The elder Son of Ares grumbled, frustrated at having to yield command to someone new to his war, with only Darrow's word that the time traveler could be trusted. Shiro was grateful when the man agreed and signed off. He reconfigured the conference call until it was just himself, his lover, and the Telemanuses.

"How many cities remain in loyalist hands?" he asked.

"The Pixies are down to only a few dozen now," Tactus answered. "We've taken all the major holdings so now the stragglers that haven't evacuated into orbit hoping to get protection from the Jackal's fleet have hunkered down in smaller cities or fled to barricade themselves in their estates."

"Good. Kavax," the Black Paladin turned to address the hologram of the Telemanus patriarch. "Can you use orbital surveillance feeds from our ships to track the stragglers down and root out their hiding places?" The titan of a man nodded grimly and signed off to request the data from Orion and Roque. With the conference call ended, the holograms faded, leaving Shiro, Keith, and Tactus standing alone in the lobby, the weight of what was happening bearing down on him like the time Hunk had to hold up the Taujeerians' ark in the Yellow Lion.

"Don't worry," Keith said, stepping forward to put a comforting hand on the older paladin's shoulder. "We'll get through this. I couldn't have asked for a better leader." Shiro appreciated the sentiment. He also recognized that Keith wasn't primarily referring to their current situation so much as he was referring to his friend's role as the Black Paladin, but Shiro tabled that conversation for later. He looked to Tactus, who nodded firmly, silently conceding leadership to him. Shiro felt a deep surge of pride at his friends' faith in him, and how willing everyone was to trust his judgement.

"We need to get back to Agea," he finally said. "We can coordinate better from the Citadel." Immediately, Tactus started shouting orders to his lieutenants and transferring command of operations on the Thermic to them while he arranged for transport back to the capital. Once again, Shiro was struck by how much everyone was willing to trust him despite him being a total stranger to them. While he knew in his head that, as Allura had described, Black Paladins were the sort of leader who others would follow without hesitation, his faith in his own worthiness to lead had taken a hit ever since that fight with Zarkon. He's started to rebuild his confidence in his leadership skills after strengthening his bond with the Black Lion but getting trapped in the future had diminished that progress.

He pushed those thoughts back as he, Tactus, and Keith took the lift to one of the hangars that still had a ship in it. They were just about to enter the docking bay when another mass-broadcast took over the screens.

 _"Men and women of the Society,"_ the regal voice of Octavia au Lune emanated from every speaker in the spaceport.  _"This is your Sovereign."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just want to give everyone a heads up, there's three more chapters in Section I. Mut my goal is to finish Part I of this fic before Season 6 comes out. After Season 6 is released, I'm going to take a break from writing for the rest of the month to recharge my creative juices and see if Season 6 gives me any new ideas for the rest of the story.


	20. Death of a Gold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two more chapters in Part I. This'll be the one that gives you an idea of what direction I'll be going with for Part II.

####  _Invictus_ Officers' Suites

#### Martian Orbit

#### March 16th, 2841

"How are you still standing?" Mustang asked incredulously as she put a hand on Darrpw's stomach where Aja had stabbed him.

"Because we're not yet done," he replied. Battered and bloody, the two lovers searched through the suite for medical supplies while Cassius and Sevro locked her brother in a storage closet to keep him from interfering when he regained consciousness. She and Darrow were quiet as they moved from room to room, the magnitude of what they'd accomplished weighing on them.

They'd done it. Against all odds, their plan had worked. They hadn't been sure Cassius' escape would be believable enough to fool the Sovereign. But it was. And now, Octavia au Lune was dead in the next room. But the fight wasn't over. They were still trapped in the heart of enemy territory, wounded, unarmored, and with no supplies. Fortunately, they still held the element of surprise on their side. Cassius had activated a jamField right before Adrius pulled the trigger of Sevro's gun. Nobody outside of this room knew what had happened. Even without the jamField, the suite itself was soundproofed. None of the guards outside would have heard what was going on. The four needed to move quickly if they were going to take the ship.

Finally, Cassius and Sevro called out that they'd found med kits in one of the closets they'd shoved Mustang's brother into. She and Darrow walked back to meet their friends in the main room to get cleaned up. They took advantage of the silence to patch up their wounds and strip the armor off the corpses of Octavia's guards.

"We need to get off this ship," Darrow announced as they cleaned the enemy blood off the armor. Cracked and pierced though the armor was, it was better protection than what they were already wearing. "As long as everything went according to plan, Shiro will have already started putting together a rescue mission. As long as we can rendezvous with the boarding parties we'll have an escort back to our own fleet."

"Cassius," Mustang began, turning to face her ex. "Is the information you gave us about the Sovereign's private stealth shuttle accurate?"

"I rode in a similar model to reach Ganymede," the Morning Knight answered. Mustang nodded. After their talk in the medBay aboard the  _Deja Thoris_ , Cassius had shared more Olympic secrets than just Octavia's secret nuclear weapons stockpile in the belt. One of those secrets was the  _Classis Plutus_ , the eleventh fleet of Pluto.

Common knowledge held that the Society military garrison was divided into nine fleet. The Scepter Armada was comprised of the first and second fleets, responsible for the defense of Earth and Luna. The third fleet was headquartered on Mercury. The  _Classis Venteum_ , the fourth fleet, served as the Venusian navy. The fifth and sixth fleets made up the armada of Mars. The seventh fleet patrolled Jupiter. The eighth fleet, while based on Jupiter's moon Callisto, was responsible for the protection of Saturn. The ninth fleet belonged to Uranus, and the tenth fleet protected Neptune. Colonization of Pluto had begun relatively recently, so the planet was too small to have an officially fleet garrisoned on the dwarf planet, instead relying on contracted Peerless lancers for protection from Outriders and other criminals.

But apparently that wasn't strictly true. According to Cassius, the eleventh fleet, though shrouded in myth like the Ascomani, was very real. A top-secret fleet created to patrol the farthest edges of the solar system and protect it against hostile extrasolar civilizations. She would have thought the idea preposterous had she not already heard of the Galra Empire's atrocities herself from Shiro. And as it happened, the time traveler had more of an impact on the current time than he thought. Though the Galaxy Garrison had publicly done little to prepare themselves for a Galra invasion, they had quietly reverse engineered the Galra technology of the escape pod Shiro had crashed in when Ulaz had sent him back to Earth.

The project had been shelved when the Iron Golds conquered Earth. But as the colonization of the solar system began to spread beyond the inner asteroid belt, the ruling Sovereign of the time saw the value in having a specialized defense fleet capable of protecting human civilization from outside threats. Over the last few two and a half centuries, the work continued. With the resources of an entire solar system at their disposal, the nascent shipyards of Ganymede constructed a secret fleet of warships combining the elegant aesthetics of the Society with the advanced technology of the Galra Empire.

The existence of the eleventh fleet presented a tantalizing opportunity for the newborn rebellion. The Rising's biggest obstacles were distance and time. Even at full burn, it would take their fastest ships three weeks to reach Earth and Luna from Mars. Another month to go the other direction towards Jupiter. Still another month if they hoped to spread the rebellion out to Neptune. And then another three months to get from Neptune to Pluto. But the Galra starfighter that Keith had apparently been flying when he'd been dragged to this era could cross the distance in a fraction of the time. Shiro never knew the exact speed of one of those small craft, but if Darrow were to guess based on Shiro's estimates of the lions' top speeds, then a single Galra fighter could reach the edge of the solar system in a matter of hours.

The  _Classis Plutus_ flew in a consistent, non-stop loop along the edge of the Kuiper Belt, not stopping for anything. Cloaked, unmarked shuttles docked on Kerberos to load up on fuel and provisions to take back to the fleet. If Shiro and Keith could lead a strike team out to the rim and smuggle themselves aboard one of those supply ships, they could make their way back to the fleet and take control. It was a risky gamble, especially since they had no idea whether they'd have the same conversion rate on the lowColors that they did on the  _Pax_. But if the two Paladins of Voltron could steal even a quarter of the Eleventh Fleet for the Rising, it would dramatically accelerate her and Darrow's plans for the rebellion.

In even better news, the Sovereign apparently kept a similarly modified stealth shuttle for her own personal use. It was how she would have escaped from Mars had the Jackal not allied himself with her. Darrow forced thoughts of fleet movements and the Jackal out of his mind and focused himself back on the task at hand. They couldn't take the eleventh fleet if he and the others didn't get off the ship first. After arming themselves once more, the four turned walked over toward the doors leading out into the corridor. Cassius went to type in the Olympic code to open the doors, then paused to sniff the air.

"What's that smell?" he wondered suspiciously.

"Smells like a sewer," Darrow commented. Sevro stared intensely at the razors he'd taken from Aja, including the one that used to belong to Lorn.

"I think it smells like victory," he remarked.

"Did you shit your pants?" Cassius asked in surprise, squinting his eyes at him. "You did."

"Sevro…" Mustang began.

"It's an involuntary muscle reaction when you're fake executed and swallow massive amounts of haemanthus oil," Sevro snapped. "You think I would do that on purpose?" Cassius and Darrow paused to look at each other, chuckling internally as they recalled the last time Sevro had asked a similar question back at the Institute.

"Well, maybe," Darrow replied with a shrug.

"Yeah, actually," Cassius answered. Sevro flipped the two of them the crux and made a face, twisting his lips till it looked like he was going to explode.

"What's happening?" Darrow asked. "Are you… still…"

"No!" Sevro retorted as he threw a water bottle. "You stuck a needle full of adrenaline into my chest, asshole. I'm having a heart attack." He swatted their hands away as they tried to help him. "I'm good he said," wheezing for a moment before he straightened up with a grimace. "I'm good."

"Are you sure you're prime?" Mustang asked.

"Left arm's numb," Sevro answered. "Probably need a Yellow." The quartet snorted with laughter as they took in the sight of their own appearances. After the battle with Aja, they looked like walking corpses. The only thing keeping them all awake and standing was the stim packs they'd looted from the dead Praetorians. Darrow wanted nothing more than to lie down with Mustang and go to sleep for a week. But they still had work to do. If everything had gone according to plan, then Shiro would already be planning a rescue mission to storm the ship and free them. They needed to be ready to meet the boarding parties and make a break for the Sovereign's shuttle.

Cassius finished entering the code, and the doors slid open with a soft  _hiss_. The Praetorian guards stationed outside whirled around. Darrow and Cassius killed them before any of them had the time to raise their own weapons. Mustang strode past before the last body hit the floor, not even stopping as she made her way through the ship. Behind the group, Cassius re-entered the code to seal the doors before turning around to follow the others. Sevro and Darrow flanked Mustang like an honor guard as they made their way through the corridors. Alarms wailed in their ears as a voice over the intercom declared that the ship had been boarded by enemy troops.

The corridors were a maze, but the four of them had each been on the ship long enough at various points to have its internal layout memorized. They rounded a corner to find a glowing circle melting through the wall as a leechcraft drilled itself into the warship's hull. The bulkhead gave way and a squad of rebel soldiers swarmed into the hallway, their combat gear painted red with the spiked helmet of Ares. A Green raised his weapon as the four moved away from the alcove they'd sheltered from the smoke in, only to drop his weapon and salute when he realized who he'd aimed his weapon at.

"Glad to see you're still alive, sir!" the tech specialist greeted as Darrow stepped out into the corridor. Gasps of shock and cheers of surprise echoed through the hallway as the rest of the boarding party caught sight of the Reaper. The cheers and whispers died instantly when Mustang stepped out, holding the two symbols of power needed for the next phase of the plan. The soldier who'd first spotted them let out a long, surprised whistle.

"Looks like you didn't need our help after all," the man commented cheekily.

"We still do, we just didn't need it to the first part of the plan," Darrow replied with a smirk. The Green chuckled.

"Terranova figured you and Ares knew what you were doing," he answered. "Captain Eckert at your service. What do you need us to do?" Darrow grinned, glad to put the next phase of the plan into motion.

"First, we need an escort to the rear hangar," the Reaper began. "There should be a modified stealth shuttle parked there fast enough to reach Luna in less than a day." Excited whispering broke out as the squad overheard and realized what Darrow was planning next. "Summon as many boarding parties as you can to rendezvous with us there," the young warlord added. "And make sure we have a Yellow with us. Virginia, Bellona, Ares, and I patched ourselves up in the stateroom, but we'll need more thorough medical attention before we reach our destination."

"Register," Eckert answered, grinning savagely as he realized what the Reaper's plan was. "Anything else?" the man asked as he reached up to activate his commlink.

"One last thing," Darrow nodded. "We stuffed the Jackal in a supply closet in the Captain's Suite. Could you send someone to pick him up on their way to the hangar. We're bringing him with us."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Classis Plutus is entirely my own invention. The only known designations for Society Fleets from the books are the Classis Venetum (4th Fleet of Venus), Classis Libertas (5th Fleet of the Inner Belt), and Classis Saturnis (8th Fleet (presumably) of Saturn). The 6th fleet is mentioned as being under the command of House Bellona and their allies, but the name is not known. All the other fleet names are my own conjecture based on fleet information from the books. The Scepter Armada being comprised of the 1st Fleet of Luna and 2nd Fleet of Earth is guesswork on my part, based on information in the books. Darrow mentions in Red Rising that the 5th and 6th fleet together make up the Armada of Mars. Going by that, it makes sense to guess that an armada in Society terms is made up of two or more fleet garrisons.


	21. Hail

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter to directly include plot points from the book. I may include some reference to Iron Gold and Morning Star later but from here on out we're officially off the rails of the RR plot.

#### Hyperion

#### Luna

#### March 17th, 2841

A tense silence filled the air as the stealth shuttle sailed passed the Scepter Armada, waiting to see if their cloaking would hold. Even with the bulk of the ships gone on a weeks-long voyage to Mars, the remaining dreadnaughts were still powerful enough to destroy their cloaked vessel in a single shot. Once the ship was clear of the fleet's long-range guns, Mustang turned and nodded for Eckert to begin the broadcast. The Green nodded back. A few seconds later, security footage of Octavia and Aja's last stand was broadcast across every holoscreen in the Society. By day's end, everyone from Mercury to Pluto would know what the Rising had done. Even now, as the ship streaked through the moon's atmosphere, the Society shuddered beneath their feet.

Back on Mars, the fleet had been routed. Wealthy Praetors were taking their personal ships and fracturing away, heading home to Mercury or Venus. Some were burning hard for the Rim, hoping to find sanctuary among the Moon Lords. A small few were on their way to Earth and Luna seeking refuge. But they'd be too late. They did not stand together, because they did not know where to stand. For sixty years, Octavia had ruled. For most living, she was the only Sovereign they had ever known. Their civilization teetered on the brink. Electrical grids were down across the moon. Riots and panic had been spreading across the surface since Darrow's broadcast in Agea, despite the Praetorians' efforts to quell the violence.

The leadership of the Rising knew that they'd never be able to win Luna in a protracted siege. Nor was it their desire to fight until all Golds perished. Mustang held a holo of the moon in the plam of her hand, hearing the silent screams of her civilization as keenly as she knew Darrow did. He stepped close to her.

"Are you ready?" he asked.

"This moon will be pandemonium," she whispered as she gazed at the virtual map of Earth's natural satellite. With the Ash Lord on his way to Mars to reinforce the dwindling loyalist fleet, Luna's defenses were at their weakest. Even if Shiro and Keith succeeded in stealing the  _Classis Plutus_ , it would be a long time before peace truly came to the Core. And who knew how long it would take to conquer the Rim. But despite her uncertainty, she wasn't truly worried. Together, she and Darrow could do anything.

"And we can rebuild it, together," he told her as he placed his hand on her shoulder. "For our child's future." His words flooded her with hope, reminder her where they were. What they'd done. That they were together, alive. She blinked quickly and smiled at him. Behind them, she heard a few of the soldiers going "aww" as she put her right hand in Darrow's. She chuckled when she heard Holiday tell Trigg to cut it out. Over the com, Lieutenant Vesta, the pilot provided by Quicksilver, announced that Cassius' Olympic landing codes had been accepted and that the ship was taxiing for a landing at the Citadel now.

"I love you all," Darrow said as the ship began its descent. "No matter what happens."

"Even Cassius?" Sevro asked.

"Especially me, today," Cassius replied.

"Stay close," Mustang said as she clutched the scepter tight. She squeezed Darrow's hand as the ship touched down with a reverberating thud. Sevro vibrated with fear as the boarding ramp lowered to reveal a landing filled with Praetorians, their weapons drawn and pointed into the open hatch of the shuttle. Mustang stepped forward, bearing a symbol of power in each hand.

"Praetorians," she began. "You sever the Sovereign. The Sovereign is dead. A new star rises." She continued walking forward, refusing to break her stride when she neared their line of bristling metal. Darrow worried for a moment that a young Gold with furious eyes might pull the trigger. But the young man's old captain put a hand on his weapon, lowering it. And they parted for her, lowering their weapons one by one. They backed away and let her pass, their helmets slithering back into their armor. The Sons of Ares filed out of the ship behind her, weapons sheathed but scythe symbols visible. Darrow had never seen a woman as glorious and powerful as his fiancé was now. She was the calm eye of the storm and everyone followed in her wake.

They marched across the grounds in silence, accompanied by more than four dozen of the Praetorians. Everywhere, they saw the Citadel in chaos. Servants were ransacking rooms, while guards left their posts in twos and threes, worried for their families and friends. With Octavia's death being broadcast across the solar system, everyone in the complex had been thrown into a panic. As they made their way to the Citadel, Cassius ordered one of the Praetorian squads to bring Lysander to the senate chamber alive and unharmed.

There was only one leader amidst the chaos, and soldiers gathered behind them as they moved through the Citadel's black marbled halls, past towering Gold statues and departments of state. The soldiers' boots stampeded over the marble halls to flock to Mustang, the one symbol of purpose and power left in the building. She lifted both of her symbols of power high in the air, and those who rose their weapons against the quartet saw them and Darrow and Cassius and the swelling mass of soldiers behind them and realized that they were fighting the tide. They either joined Mustang, or they ran.

Some took shots at them or rushed forward in small bands to halt their progress. But those Golds were cut down before they could get within ten meters of Mustang. By the time she, Darrow, Cassius, and Sevro came before the great ivory-white doors to the Senate Chambers, behind which Senators were sequestered inside by Praetorians, an army of hundreds was at their back, and only a thin line of twenty Praetorians barred their way to the Senate Chamber. An elegant Gold Knight stepped forward, leader of the men guarding the chamber. He eyed the hundred behind them, seeing the purple adherents Mustang had gathered. The Obsidians, the Grays, Darrow… A moment later, he made his decision, and saluted Mustang sharply.

The remaining Praetorians arrived with the late Sovereign's grandson in tow. Cassius knelt and spoke with the boy in hushed tones after making it clear to everyone that the child was under his protection. Once their conversation was finished, Cassius stood. Lysander clearly grieved for his grandmother, but he stood with the Rising as a sign of their legitimacy. The two Obsidians guarding the doors pushed them open for the rest of the group and Mustang strode forward into the Senate Chamber. The room was a vast, tiered funnel of white marble. The podium from which the Sovereign traditionally addressed the Senate was at the lowest of the chamber's ten levels. Mustang and her entourage caused a disruption as they entered from the north side. Hundreds of beady politico eyes turned their entitled focus towards the interlopers. All eyes were immediately drawn to the two objects in Mustang's hands.

Somewhere in the room, she knew that Roque's mother would be standing up from her seat on her marble bench and crane her neck to watch the bloody band stomp down the white marble stairs to the bottom center of the great chamber. Mustang and Darrow passed Senators on both sides, bringing silence with them instead of shouts or protests while Lysander trailed behind Cassius. Mustang could hear the rasping, panicked breath of the Senate Majority Speaker as his Pink attendats helped his withered form down from the podium where he'd been presiding over something of "great" importance.

Mustang bit back the urge to laugh at the senate's presumptuousness. Here and now, in the middle of chaos, the entitled Politicos were trying to hold an election. Now, they looked like children caught with their hands in the biscuit jar.  _Of course, they would never suspect that the Praetorians guarding them would support the rebels,_ Mustang thought to herself.  _Or that we would walk from the Sovereign's bunker unimpeded._ But she also knew that these people had created a society of fear. Where men and women needed to attach themselves to rising stars to survive.  _That's all this is,_  she reminded herself. It was the simple human directive that allowed for this coup to work. The old power was dead, and now the political parasites flocked to the new.

She took the podium with her friends and the Praetorians flanking her. She looked over at Darrow as he dumped her brother to the ground, so the Senate could see what was left of her brother's most trusted lieutenant. Mustang had never wanted this burden, but she accepted it just as Darrow had accepted his role as Reaper. He could see how this troubled her, and they both knew that she would need him as much as he needed her. But they also knew that Darrow could never stand where she stood or hold what she held, not without destroying everyone in this room. They would never accept his authority, but they would respect hers. If Darrow was the bridge to the lowColors, then she was the bridge to the high. The only way to bring peace to the worlds and unite humanity was together. With one last look at the father of her child, Mustang took a deep breath, and cleared her throat to speak.

"Senators of the Society," she proclaimed. "I stand before you, Viriginia au Augustus. Daughter of Nero au Augustus of the Lion House of Mars. You may know me. Sixty years ago, Octavia au Lune stood before you with the head of a tyrant, her father, and laid her claim on the post of Sovereign to this Society." She paused as her keen eyes scoured the room.

"I stand before you now with the head of a tyrant," she continued as she lifted her left hand to show the severed head of Octavia, one of the two objects which had granted her, and her friends passage to this room. Gold only respected one thing. And, in order for their culture to change, they needed to be tamed by that one thing.

"The Old Age has brought chaos, corruption, and death to the heart of the Society," she continued. "Millions have burned for Octavia's greed. Millions burn even now for my brother's treachery. We must save ourselves from ourselves before the inheritance of humanity is ash. Today, I declare the beginning of a new age. With new allies. New ways. I have the Rising at my back. A navy made of great Golden Houses which even now burns for Luna with a horde of Obsidian liberated from Mars' south pole."

"You have a choice before you," she finished as she tossed the Sovereign's head to the stone podium and raised her other hand. In it was the Dawn Scepter, bestowing upon its bearer the right to rule Society. "Bend, or break." Silence filled the chamber, and Mustang knew Darrow as concerned that this vast quiet would swallow them all into itself and begin the war anew. As she glanced at Darrow in her peripheral vision, she communicated what they were both thinking. No Gold would be the first to bend their knee to the Rising. Darrow could make them, but it would be better if he bent for them. The Reaper of Mars fell to one knee before the heir of House Augustus. He looked up into her eyes and put his stump over his heart, smiling with impossible joy and pride for her.

"Hail, Sovereign," he said. Then Cassius fell to his knee beside Darrow, followed by Sevro, who temporarily set Thistle down on the floor of the chamber. Next were Lysander au Lune and the Praetorians. Then, one by one, the Senators fell to their knees until all but fifty kneeled and broke the silence together, shouting with a single riotous voice.

"Hail, Sovereign! Hail, Sovereign!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Most of the dialogue and descriptions quoted directly from Morning Star Chapter 64. The rest was entirely new or reworked to account for the changes to the plot and having this happen 2+ years earlier than in canon.


	22. A New Dawn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright folks, this is it. The last chapter of Part I. There's still more to go in this fic, but I'm taking the rest of June off to recharge my creative juices and see if Season 6 gives me some ideas in regards to Keith and Shiro's backstories to reference in future chapters. I will be back in July to continue the story.

#### Agea

#### Mars

#### March 17th, 2841

Keith stifled a yawn as he leaned back in the comfy chair that he was sure had cost a fortune to make. The Second Battle of Mars had come to a close shortly after midnight, so he'd only managed to get a few hours of sleep before Shiro dragged him out of bed to this early morning meeting. Keith didn't really think his expertise was needed here, but he figured that Shiro just wanted a reminder that the younger Paladin's presence wasn't a hallucination, that Keith was really there. And considering what little he knew so far about what Shiro had been through in the last few months, he could begrudge him that reassurance.

They'd won. After almost twenty-four hours of conflict, the Rising had full control over the surface of Mars and its two moons. But the war was only just beginning. With the Sovereign's death, the loyalist fleet in orbit had fractured as they retreated towards other planets in the solar system. Mercury and Venus were deep in the core, and from what Shiro knew the Sons of Ares' presence there was a relatively recent development. And that was without mentioning the ambiguity of the situation with the gas giants.

Several high-ranking Golds had been murdered by the Jackal's allies at the Triumph held shortly before hostilities broke out that had been meant to celebrate the victory in the previous battle for control of the planet that had taken place three weeks prior. Chief among those slain in the garden ambush had been Revus au Raa and several other ArchGovernors from the moons of Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune. Thanks to Shiro's presence at the banquet, a few of the Moon Lords and children survived, but most had perished.

It remained to be seen whether their families would take up arms to avenge their death. And if so, would they ally themselves with the Rising out of spite for Octavia, or would they simply declare their independence from Luna and refuse to support either side? Tridenti au Norvo, ArchGoverness of Triton, one of the moons of Neptune, would be traveling towards the rim with the intent to return the surviving Rimborn children to their remaining family members as a peace offering to give the rebellion some sway with the Moon Lords. Keith could see the logic in that, but there were other things to worry about sailing the cosmos in that direction.

With the late ArchGovernor's son captured, the man's lieutenants, the Boneriders, had fled outward towards the asteroid belt under the command of Tharsus and Apollonius au Valii-Rath. Capturing those two and the remaining Boneriders was earmarked as one of the rebellion's highest priorities, and not just because they were Tactus' older brothers. Apparently, there was a top-secret bunker hidden in the asteroid belt, filled with enough nuclear warheads to destroy an entire planet. Keith shuddered at the thought. He'd been desensitized to all the dangers in space but being so close to Earth for the first time in ages reminded him of all the everyday threats back home.

That left the Ash Lord as the primary threat to the rebellion. With Octavia au Lune dead, command of the Scepter Armada, the Society's largest military force, fell to ArchImperator Magnus au Grimmus and his two surviving daughters, Moira and Atalantia. Keith had only heard whispers of the Grimmus family's reputation, but the few rumors he had managed to hear made him wary of facing them in direct conflict. If the Ash Lord, who apparently earned his moniker from using those hidden nukes on Saturn's moon Rhea, reached Mars before the Rising could solidify their hold on the inner planets – which if what Keith heard was accurate, only gave them two weeks – then there were very poor odds for the longevity of the rebel movement.

Fortunately, that was where the two time-travelling Paladins of Voltron came in. Before their departure for Luna, Mustang had told Shiro about the existence of the  _Classis Plutus_ , a secret black-ops fleet of warships made with Galra technology reverse engineered from the very same ship the Black Paladin had crashed in when Ulaz had helped him escape from the empire the first time. While apparently not as fast as a Voltron lion, even the smallest ship in the 11th Fleet of Pluto was fast enough to travel from Pluto to Mercury in less than a single day. If they could hijack even just a few ships, they'd be able to greatly accelerate the Rising's momentum.

For now, the plan was this: Keith and Shiro would cram that Galra fighter the former had arrived in full of as many Sons of Ares and other rebel troops as they could fit, and fly outward towards Kerberos, where the stealth ships that delivered food and other critical items to the hybrid fleet docked to restock on supplies. Once on Kerberos, they would smuggle themselves aboard the next supply convoy and ride all the way out to where the fleet patrolled the edge of the Kuiper Belt, protecting humanity from extra-terrestrial incursions. Once aboard, they would take control of the ship.

Shiro's idea was to take the bridge and try to persuade the crew to defect to the rebellion, but Keith wasn't optimistic about the chances of that tactic working. Apparently, the Reaper had done it before. But Keith was willing to bet that whoever had commissioned the fleet would have wanted to make sure that the crew was undyingly loyal to the system to prevent exactly what Shiro was proposing if the fleet's existence was discovered, and their location leaked. But he didn't begrudge Shiro his idealism. He could tell Shiro was using it as a coping mechanism to deal with all the things he had on his plate on top of the trauma from his time as Zarkon's prisoner.

Currently, Shiro and the rebellion's leadership were discussing last minute minutia for the framework of the new government the rebellion hoped to build. Once the rebellions biggest threats were defeated, they planned to create a Solar Republic, build a civilization where everyone had a voice, not just the ruling elite. It was a noble goal, and Shiro was providing input based on what legal stuff he could remember from twenty-first century Earth. Some of the rebellions leaders like Dancer, Theodora, and the Telemanuses were attending the meeting in person, while others, such as Orion, Victra, and Roque, who were in charge of the fleet, and Quicksilver, the Sons of Ares' secret financier and the richest person in the solar system who wasn't a Gold, attended via hologram.

The Reformers in the senate would aid Mustang in taking control of Luna, and from there, they would conquer Earth. Once Earth and its moon were under the rebellion's complete control, the Reaper would lead the fleet towards Mercury and Venus to secure the inner core. Meanwhile, Mustang would begin the transition of power from the Society to the Solar Republic. It would be a slower change than Dancer and the other Sons of Ares wanted, but Darrow had a point when he argued that until they had solidified their hold on the worlds they'd taken, the rebellion needed a strong central chain of command to keep their momentum going. They would start making reforms like giving all Colors representation in the senate, abolishing the hierarchy, dismantling the Board of Quality Control, and freeing the slave castes from bondage.

As Sovereign, Mustang would retain enough executive power to ensure a smooth transition. And once they cornered the Ash Lord, she would relinquish enough of those powers to satisfy the people worried about a potential dictatorship later on down the line. Keith and Shiro both knew that while they shared some of Dancer's concerns, this was also the best option they had to keep things running smoothly as the government changed. Otherwise, things would quickly turn chaotic with too many voice scrambling for a piece of the political pie while the Republic was trying to fend off retaliation from the loyalists.

He was jolted out of his thoughts when he heard a sigh coming from his right. He turned to find Shiro's boyfriend plopping himself down in one of the conference room's horrifically expensive chairs and pouring himself a glass of wine. As Tactus au Rath took a sip of his drink, it occurred to Keith that despite fighting side by side for the last day, he hadn't really had a chance to get to know the man.  _Might as well try to start a conversation at least,_ he told himself nervously as he wondered how best to talk to the man he best friend was dating.  _Besides,_ he quipped silently.  _The others will kill me if I don't give Shiro's boyfriend the shovel talk on their behalf._

"Politics are such a bore when you're sober," the Gold remarked. "Drinking only makes it tolerable at best."

"I wouldn't know," Keith commented with an awkward chuckle. "I've still got a few years before I'm old enough to legally buy drink alcohol." Tactus raised an eyebrow, and Keith couldn't help but not the contrast between the man's dark skin and golden hair. The man was silent as he finished his first glass.

"You're what? Nineteen?" Tactus observed, pouring himself another glass. "In this era, you're technically legal. Care for some Lagavulin?"

"No thanks," Keith replied. "Not really in any particular rush. I've already tried Altean Nunvil, and if wine tastes anything like that does, I don't really feel like trying. Besides, even if I did, I'd never be able to live with that "I'm disappointed in you" look on Shiro's face when I got caught. The last time I was on the receiving end of his Disappointed Dad Face still haunts me to this day."

"I know what you mean," Tactus said with a mock shudder. "You should have seen the look he gave Clown and Pebble when they painted graffiti on the ceiling of his cabin on the  _Pax_. It made me want to apologize to him and it wasn't even me he was directing it towards. He's just got one of those magnetic personalities that even if he's not actively being a mother hen towards you, you still feel like your letting him down when he gives you that face."

"I'll drink to that," Keith commented dryly. The two young men laughed quietly at that. After finishing his third glass of wine, Tactus put his glass down and turned to face Keith directly.

"Here's an idea," the older man suggested. "You've got years of embarrassing stories of Shiro from his time at Galaxy Garrison. I've got months' worth of tales from our time aboard the  _Pax_ on our voyage from Europa to Mars. What say we head downstairs to the kitchens, find you a nonalcoholic beverage, and trade dirt on our mutual friend? Register?"

"Register" Keith replied, grinning with anticipation. The two of them got up to leave when a shout echoed from the other side of the conference table.

"They made it!" Shiro hollered, staring at an incoming transmission on his datapad. Keith immediately sat back down. Tactus chugged the last of his wine and threw the empty bottle in a trashcan near the door before turning on his heel and returning to his seat. Every holoscreen in the conference room flickered to life. After a few seconds of static, the image cleared to show Mustang in what Keith assumed was the senate chamber on Luna, surrounded by the Reaper, Sevro, two grays, and a tall Gold who Shiro identified as Cassius au Bellona.

 _"Senators of the Society,"_  she proclaimed.  _"I stand before you, Viriginia au Augustus. Daughter of Nero au Augustus of the Lion House of Mars. You may know me. Sixty years ago, Octavia au Lune stood before you with the head of a tyrant, her father, and laid her claim on the post of Sovereign to this Society."_  She paused as she lifted the severed head of the woman in question, taken from her corpse late last night before the Reaper and Mustang left Mars.  _"I stand before you now with the head of a tyrant,"_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still going off the ages released in the Voltron Paladins' Handbook released last year, even though the producers said not to treat the ages listed as set-in-stone facts. So I'm going with the assumption that Keith is 18 when they leave Earth, and turns 19 at some point while they're in space. It's vague how long it's been since they left, but I figure it's been long enough that at least one of the paladins has had a birthday pass.


	23. Outbound Flight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> # Part II: Rage:
> 
> # "Shit escalates"
> 
> # –Sevro au Barca

#### Galra Fighter

#### En route to the Kuiper Belt

#### March 24th, 2841

It was crowded in the cockpit of the Galra fighter as they broke through the Martian atmosphere out into the dark void of space. Shiro was grateful everyone was wearing gravBoots to keep them anchored to the floor while Keith reoriented the ship away from the sun and took them towards the Rim. After a week of preparations and planning, they were finally on their way to the 11th Fleet. ArchGoverness Norvo and Lorn au Arco's daughters-in-law had taken their ships the day after the battle and sailed out towards the Rim in pursuit of the Jackal's Boneriders. Once the bastards had been caught, the two families would continue towards Jupiter, where the remnants of House Arcos would retake Lorn's stronghold on Europa to give the rebellion a foothold among the Galilean Moons.

Tridenti au Norvo and her forces would remain in Jupiter's orbit until Shiro's team sent word that they'd successfully taken the  _Classis Plutus_ , then they would use the modified fleet to expedite the ArchGoverness's return to Triton. Meanwhile, the rest of the rebel forces who hadn't gone with Darrow and Mustang to Luna remained behind on Mars. Orion and the Telemanuses stood sentinel over the fourth planet to protect it from Gold reprisals, while Ragnar began the long, difficult process of liberating his people from the ice wastes of Mars' South Pole. That left Keith and Shiro to lead the rebel strike team to the Kuiper Belt to hijack the 11th fleet. However, there was one pit stop they needed to make on the way there.

Cassius had told Mustang about Octavia's deep space asteroid warehouse on S-1988, a minor main belter in the Karin Cluster. It was a silicate-based junk asteroid with no mining potential, but it was what was inside the warehouse that mattered. Five hundred nuclear warheads, each with a yield of thirty megatons. The depot sat between the Core and the Rim, the Sovereign's trump card if the Ash Lord ever had to repeat the atrocities that earned the man his moniker. The idea of weapons of such devastating destructive power in the hands of a man like ArchImperator Grimmus was horrifying enough on its own. But according to Quicksilver, The Jackal had heard whispers of the depot's existence.

It wasn't a stretch from there to assume that he'd shared that intel with his most trusted conspirators for after the intended slaughter at Darrow's Triumph. While the Norvo and Arcos fleets would hunt the Boneriders, Shiro and Keith planned to stop at the depot on the way there and destroy it before the Jackal's Boneriders could get to it. Shiro had seen footage of Adrius' lieutenants during the Second Battle of Mars, and at The Institute. They could not be allowed to acquire those nukes under  _any_ circumstances. The only reason they hadn't left earlier was because it had taken a week for the Rising's scientists to analyze Keith's Galra fighter and figure out how to free up extra space for more troops without sacrificing critical systems.

Tactus put a hand on Shiro's shoulder as the ship sped through the darkness of space in the direction of Pluto's orbit. The fighter wasn't fast enough to get them there in minutes like when he and the other Paladins had first fled Earth in the Blue Lion, but it would still take less than a day. By Shiro's estimates, it would take about an hour for them to reach the asteroid belt. Depending on how long they spent at the warehouse neutralizing the warheads, it would only be a few hours from there to Kerberos. If all went well, they'd reach their destination by the end of the day. Despite the anticipation of the mission, Shiro found himself filled with a quiet sense of dread at the thought of returning to the moon where all the insanity of his life began.

It had been a relief to hear from Keith that Pidge had finally found her brother, although the Black Paladin couldn't help but worry since there was still no lead on what had befallen Commander Holt. Intellectually, Shiro knew there was nothing he could have done to keep himself and the Holts from getting captured. The Galra Empire would have taken them no matter what. And even if they hadn't been captured, the empire would have eventually invaded Earth in search of the Blue Lion. But there was always that small part of him that clung to the idea that if he had done something differently, it wouldn't have happened. It was a futile exercise, something he did when he thought about his situation to give himself some measure of control. It helped keep him him grounded during travel time and his thoughts drifted back to the past.

The next thing he knew, his ears popped, and Tactus was gently shaking him on the shoulder.

"Sorry," he apologized sheepishly. "Just got lost in my own thoughts." Both Keith and Tactus looked at him like they could see through the excuse at what had really happened. Neither of them said anything, though, and for that, Shiro was grateful. Tactus deactivated the jamField and told the other rebel soldiers crammed into the back of the starfighter to ready themselves for an EVA.

"We've reached Asteroid S-1998," Keith announced as the ship began to slow. Shiro moved closer to Keith's seat to look out the window. From the outside, the depot looked like any other asteroid in the inner belt. If he hadn't known what he was looking for, Shiro wouldn't have paid any special attention to it. But he knew this was no ordinary asteroid. As Keith piloted the Galran craft around the asteroid, Shiro opened the coms and transmitted the Olympic clearance codes Cassius had supplied them with before he had left for Luna with Darrow and Mustang. A chime marked that the codes had been accepted, and a large rectangular section of the asteroid's stone surface sunk inward and slid away to reveal a small hangar bay for ships to dock for loading.

Gently, Keith brought the ship in and landed it delicately on the metal floor of the hangar. Shiro didn't know whether it was Druid magic or the Galran equivalent of a GravThruster that kept the starfighter precariously balanced on its narrow base, but he wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Evey stayed behind with a third of their strike team to guard the ship while Shiro and Tactus lead everyone else into the decontamination chamber. Once the chamber had completed its cycle, the team stepped into the dark hallways of the warehouse.

The instant the hatch leading into the corridor unsealed, the Geiger meter synced to Shiro's helmet crackled at the radiation in the air. If they hadn't had to wear their helmets due to lack of oxygen in the facility, they'd have been immediately fried. The amount of radiation was staggeringly greater than that present in the legal five megaton warheads used in space combat.  _Looks like Cassius' intel checked out,_ he thought to himself as he leads the way to the control room. Not that he had doubted the Morning Knight's sincerity in defecting to their side, but he had entertained the possibility that Cassius had been given false information to divert attention away from booby traps or other security measures the Sovereign's weapons depot might have.

In any case, they were here now, and thus far the floor plans the Bellona had provided them with appeared to be accurate. They moved quickly, radiation-proof clothing worn on top of pulseArmor crinkled noisily as they crept towards the control room. The jets on their suits were silent in the vacuum as they moved forward, gravBoots anchoring them to the deck. Helmet cams transmitting everything they saw across the solar system. Darrow had figured that learning the Sovereign had kept enough nukes to repeat Rhea if the Rim ever rebelled again would be a useful incentive for the undecided Moon Lords to throw their lot in with the Rising. As they rounded a corner and found a window overlooking the warehouse's contents, Shiro could only hope that the Reaper was right.

The Black Paladin paled as he took in the sight of so many nukes. He glanced up at the Geiger meter on his helmet display, seeing how much radiation was in the air. Unbidden, his mind flashed back to childhood memories. Of his grandfather telling him about the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. About the Fukushima disaster. He remembered the horror in his grandfather's voice when he spoke of both, and it was the closest frame of reference he had to even come close to describing the terror he felt as he truly processed what people mean when they spoke in hushed tones of the Burning of Rhea.

Shiro turned as he felt a hand on his shoulder to find Tactus standing beside him, his face equally as horrified. Keith stood still on Shiro's other side, trying to process the rows upon rows of nuclear warheads spread out before them, stretching across the metal cavern of the warehouse until they looked as if they'd go on forever. Shaking his head, he turned back to face their troops, wrenching his eyes away from the sight.

"Alright," he said, his voice hoarse as he struggled to maintain his composure. "According to our intel, there's a self-destruct switch in the control room. We know the Boneriders haven't found this place yet because the nukes are still here. But we need to be careful. We don't know if there are any loyalist forces stationed on nearby asteroids dispatched to defend the warehouse. So, we proceed with caution. Stay in formation and keep your eyes open. Let's move." Everyone snapped to attention and formed up in a column. Shiro took the lead, and with Keith and Tactus behind him, he led the way down the hallway toward where Cassius' map said the warehouse's control center would be.

It was almost too easy. It took fifteen minutes for them to reach the control center from the hangar. The warehouse still had power, so they disabled all communications and set the base to self-destruct in twenty minutes. That could give them enough time to get back to the ship and get clear before the asteroid blew up. Halfway through the countdown, and two thirds of the way back to the ship, Murphy's Law reared its ugly head.

"Sir," Evey's voice jumped out at him over the coms. "We've got incoming."

"Friend or foe?" he asked.

"Foe," she answered. "Three dreadnaughts. Bonerider insignias." Shiro grit his teeth.

"How long till they get here?" he demanded.

"Dreadnaughts are holding fifteen minutes out from the asteroid, but they're sending shuttles to steal the warheads. ETA ten minutes." Shiro checked the countdown timer on his HUD. The shuttles would reach the warehouse right as the clock hit zero. He turned to Keith, his eyes asking the silent question of whether his fellow Paladin could pilot their ship away from the ship fast enough to get out of range of the dreadnaughts' long-range guns. Keith nodded, and Shiro grinned as he told Evey to get everyone on board.

They moved quicker after that, gravBoots calibrated for them to skip through the hallway like when they pursued Tactus through the halls of Lorn's castle on Europa. Tactus leaped along beside him now, moving like Aja had come back from the dead to chase him. It took three minutes to reach the hangar. Shiro glanced nervously at the ticking countdown on his wrist once they were safely inside the ship. It had taken them two minutes to get everyone crammed on board. They had five minutes before the asteroid exploded, and the Bonerider shuttles were halfway to the base and closing fast.

He held his breath as Keith guided their ship out of the hangar into open space. He held the edge of the pilot's chair in a death grip as they dodged missiles and railgun fire from the dreadnaughts and sped through the asteroid belt, weaving among large objects to avoid being targeted while getting as far away from the asteroid as they could. Once they reached the outer edge of the belt, Keith did a U-turn and parked the ship to give everyone a front row seat for the impending fireworks.

Shiro began to count out loud as the timer finally ticked down its last few seconds and tinted his visor as the view outside lit up with a blinding white explosion of energy as the explosive force of five hundred warheads ripped through the asteroid belt. When the explosion faded, everyone in the ship gaped in awe at the sight. Between the self-destruct mechanism and the nukes themselves, the explosion had incinerated every asteroid around it on both sides of the belt, carving a tunnel through the belt that let them see all the way through to the other side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, I'm back. Holy Quiznak was Season 6 amazing or what? I finally got the snippets of Shiro and Keith's backstories I've been waiting for, so I'll be incorporating references to those flashbacks in future chapters. And while I was one of many who predicted Clone!Shiro, even I didn't see the way that played out coming. It's safe to say that my Red Rising/Voltron fics have officially crossed over into full AU territory now, so from this point, so there will be quite a few differences in canon once Shiro and Keith get back to the past. For the rest of the summer, I'm going to try to keep a consistent writing schedule and update every Monday and Saturday. Enjoy, and I'll have the next chapter posted on Saturday.


	24. Sins of the Father

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the short chapter this time. Not a lot really happens except Mustang reflecting on everything and summarizing what's been going on during the one week time-skip between the previous two chapters.

#### Hyperion

#### Luna

#### March 24th, 2841

Mustang sighed as she leaned back in her chair in what had once been the private offices of Octavia au Lune. It had been a week since they arrived on Luna, and the moon was still in turmoil. Thanks to a combination of Theodora's contacts, the Reformers, and a few sympathetic children of the Moon Lords, they had managed to take control of the Citadel in a matter of hours. But even now, fires burned across the lunar capital as the Sons of Ares fought to secure the city. The Nakamuras had rendezvoused with Trigg's fiancé, Ephraim, and were leading Rising strike teams in hunting down loyalist Peerless Scarred.

In the aftermath of her speech to the Senate, dozens of Gold ships defected, forcing the remaining ships of the Scepter Armada left to guard the moon in the Ash Lord's absence to retreat towards the ArchImperator's main fleet. Meanwhile Roque and Quinn, who had come along from Mars with some of the crew from their own ships, had used the newly defected ships to seize naval control of Luna. On the surface, Darrow and Cassius were out in the streets of Hyperion leading their forces, accompanied by as many Golds from her and Darrow's Institute army as they could fit into Octavia's shuttle. That left Mustang back at the Citadel working to restore order and implement the framework of the Solar Republic's new government.

With the Ash Lord off-planet, Mustang had secured the cooperation of most of the military, particularly the Gray Legions and Obsidian slave knights. She had used this political muscle to begin the first steps of dismantling the color hierarchy and the Gold grip on military power. The Board of Quality Control had been dissolved, and the members who had been apprehended now faced trial for their crimes. The senate was being rebuilt from the ground up, with the low- and midColor leaders of local resistance cells had been appointed to fill seats until proper elections could be held for each Color, with many Golds who were neutral or against the dismantling of the hierarchy being dismissed from office to open seats. The only Aureate to retain their positions in the senate were the Reformers.

There remained some grumbling among the mid- and lowColors, who remained largely distrustful of Golds in general. They felt that having another Gold as Sovereign would simply lead to more of the same rather than any lasting change. Fortunately, her continued appointment of lowColors to positions of authority and repealing legislation that denied them rights kept the complainers, if not silent, then certainly outnumbered. This ensured that Mustang had enough energy and patience to focus on more important priorities like restructuring the legal system.

Back on Mars, things were progressing more smoothly than they were here on Luna. With the Rising in control of the fourth planet's surface, Dancer and the Sons of Ares had begun the long process of liberating lowReds from their enslavement in the mines beneath the Martian surface. Victra was using the prominence of her mother's company on Phobos to facilitate drastic economic changes, raising the wages for the lowColor workers, covering the cost of transit for workers who had migrated up from Mars on contract work, providing flesh work and prosthetics for employees who'd been dismissed after losing limbs on the job.

Ragnar had lead a mixed Color team in seizing control of Asgard Station at Mars' South Pole and had taken the first steps towards freeing his people from bondage in the polar ice wastes. It would be a long road for the Prince of the Valkyrie Spires. The Obsidians were deeply superstitious after centuries of being told that Golds were gods. He'd managed to browbeat his mother into supporting their cause, but it would take weeks for word of his return to the Spires to spread to the other tribes. Weeks more to begin migrating everyone away from the poles to protect them from orbital bombardment when the Ash Lord arrived.

According to intelligence Theodora had received from Quicksilver's spy network, ArchImperator Grimmus was continuing towards Mars in spite of news of Octavia's demise. While Mustang knew the man wanted back the home they had stolen from him, she also respected that he would attack the more tactically convenient target. In all honesty, the Ash Lord was caught between a rock and a hard place. If he attacked Mars, hoping to take revenge by attacking the locus of the rebel movement, and it bought time for the Rising to conquer Luna and send reinforcements after him. But if he turned around and tried to retake Luna, that left him vulnerable to fresh rebel ships from Mars. Since the Ash Lord appeared to be targeting Mars, it appeared that he considered a planet full of well rested rebels to be a greater threat than a moon's worth of desperate and weary conquerors.

While her fiancé was relentless in his efforts to lead the conquest of Luna, he did whatever he could to minimize the loss of civilian lives. It helped that she continued to receive reports of Luneborn citizens rising to aid the rebellion wherever they could. As she thought about Darrow's exploits, her hand drifted towards her stomach, reminder herself that in a few months, she and Darrow were going to be parents. Mustang was never one to let herself be nervous worrying about the future, but at the moment, she was wondering what kind of world their child would be born into if Shiro, Keith, and Tactus were unable to secure the  _Classis Plutus_ and the war continued to draw out.

Thinking about her unborn child lead her down another train of thought, one that she had tried to avoid thinking about for years. Her eyes welled up with tears as she recalled the memory. She had told Darrow once that he would become like her father if he stayed on his path alone. That had been before she figured out his secret, but looking back, now that she knew the full truth, she realized that despite their similarities, there were enough key differences to recognize that Darrow would never be as cruel as her father.

When she was six, her mother had been pregnant with a little girl. The doctor had said there would be complications with the birth and recommended intervening medically. But her father had refused, saying that if the child wasn't fit to survive birth, then it didn't deserve life. Even all these years later, it still boggled Mustang's mind that humanity could move between the stars and shape planets, but her father let her sister die in her mother's womb. Holiday had been horrified to hear that the night the ex-Legionnaire had joined her, Darrow, and their friends for dinner at the Citadel while she was on leave from the front lines. As the older woman had pointed out, the Augustus family had the money to afford cell therapy for Mustang's mother. But her father had believed in "purity in the product". It was insane, as Holiday rightly said, but it was her family.

Mustang's mother had never been the same after that. Mustang would hear her crying in the middle of the day or find her staring out the window. One night, her mother went out for a walk at their Caragmore estate while her father was in Agea working, and never came home. Her mother's body was found on the rocks beneath the sea cliffs near the edge of the state.  _Father said she slipped,_ Mustang reminisced to herself.  _If he were still alive, he would still say she slipped. I don't think he could have survived thinking of anything else._

Intellectually, she knew she probably shouldn't miss her father. Nero au Augustus had been a cruel man who murdered his first wife and oversaw some of the Board of Quality Control's worst excesses on Mars and found them inadequate. The man would call her, his own daughter, a whore with one breath and then smile when she reclaimed her political power in the room, as during the war meeting aboard the  _Invictus_ a month after fleeing Luna following the Gala. Despite all that, she still mourned the man who had taught her how to ride horses and to lift herself up from her own strength when she fell, both physically and metaphorically. But her father was cruel, and he was wrong about a great many things. And if she could be something else, then she would be.

Thinking about her father inevitably sent her thoughts drifting towards the subject of her incarcerated twin brother. When she had heard what Adrius had said and done in the gardens at the Triumph, duty was the only think that kept her from breaking down right there on the bridge of the  _Deja Thoris_. She loved her brother, and he had thrown that away. Despite her grief, She could understand why Adrius had killed their father. After all, she had defended her twin against the man for years. But that ended when she found out that Adrius had been the one to have Claudius killed. She couldn't forgive that. That was her twin's curse, to lose the love he did have chasing the love he would never receive.

And now he was rotting in the Citadel's prison wing, hated and lone. Despite everything he'd done, his treachery against their allies, his torture of Sons of Ares he captured, she still felt sympathy for him. She'd told Darrow once that she was lucky to have been around the Telemanuses growing up. And she was beginning to realize that Kavax had influenced her life in more than just her personal ethics and beliefs. In another life, if she had been in her brother's position, she wondered whether or not she would have turned out the same way.

Right then and there, she resolved to visit her brother in prison at some point in the next week. Part of the Rising's plans for the new government involved abolishing the death penalty, but she knew that wouldn't be enacted until at least after her brother had been put on trial. Because of his role in brutally hunting the rebellion and orchestration of the events leading up to the murder of the original Ares, she knew that any court would demand Adrius' execution. So, if she was going to lose the last of her blood family, then she at least needed to get closer. She needed to talk to her twin brother one last time before the end.

Just then, her thoughts abruptly screeched to a halt as an incoming message chimed on her datapad, reminding her of an upcoming meeting. With a sigh, she pushed herself back up from her chair. The break was soothing while it had lasted, but now it was time to get back to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mustang's next chapter will be her meeting with her brother. I know this chapter was mainly character introspection, but I don't yet trust myself to write scenes of Mustang negotiating with politicians, so I did my best to summarize what's going on and make it sound interesting. Anyway, the next chapter will be up on Monday, and it'll be back to the Rim team for their first encounter with the 11th fleet.


	25. Full Circle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise I will explain my reasoning for the decisions regarding this reveal in my notes for next chapter, but for now, I am not sorry for this cliffhanger. 
> 
> :)

**Cargo Ship Epsilon-G57**

**Kerberos**

**March 24th, 2841**

Keith shivered as he sat in the cargo hold of the shuttle that would take them from Kerberos out to where the 11th Fleet of Pluto patrolled the far edge of the Kuiper Belt to protect the solar system from extraterrestrial incursions. It hadn't taken them long after arriving to find what they were looking for. Once again, Cassius au Bellona's intel checked out. The ships responsible for providing food and other critical supplies to the  _Classis Plutus_ were always unmarked, and Nexiti had confirmed the shuttle's flight logs in the spaceport records listed its destination and cargo as classified.

They had spent less than a day on Kerberos after Keith had found a place to hide the ship. He could imagine how bizarre it must be for Shiro to come back to the moon where Zarkon's forces had abducted him, only to find a bustling spaceport instead of an icy wasteland. They had kept themselves hidden under ghostCloaks as they made their way to the spaceport and smuggled themselves aboard the five Society ships. Evey and Fenix each took a fifth of the strike team with them as the group split up. Shiro had figured that if the whole unit was discovered on one shuttle, it would be too easy for the  _Classis Plutus_ to destroy their ship and protect the other four. Spreading the group out into as many ships as possible reduced the risk of failing the entire mission.

The shuttles came on rotation, each specific ship using a different transponder code each time it came into port. But since Bellona had provided them with the files, they knew exactly which ship to board. The 11th Fleet's protocols were like clockwork. Every other month, five cargo shuttles would land on Kerberos and load up with food, spaceship parts, and other equipment that had been delivered to the frozen moon by modified and cloaked cosmosHaulers during the off months. From there, they would ferry their cargo out to the edge of the Kuiper Asteroid belt that stretched from Neptune past Pluto's orbit to the edge of the solar system. From the 11th Fleet's flagship, the supplies would be redistributed according to whichever ship needed them.

It was an efficient system, and the fact that the Board of Quality Control office on Pluto was authorized to make anyone who asked too many questions disappear without a trace was what lead him and Shiro to the one bit of intel the Olympic Knights weren't privy to. Namely, how the fleet maintained its crew size over the centuries. Unlike other ships throughout the solar system, who were permitted shore leave while docked in spaceports, the crew of the  _Classis Plutus_ wasn't allowed to leave the fleet. Their only chance off the ship they were born on was to request transfer to another warship. Entire generations were born, lived, and died without ever seeing the world beyond the hull of their ship.

The downside to that was this left very limited options when it came to dating and having kids. To rectify this, the Board of Quality Control sent along a fresh batch of conscripts, specialists of all colors who were quietly made to disappear and shuttled out to the 11th fleet for the sole purpose of diversifying the gene pool. Nexiti had managed to hack into this shuttle's cargo manifest, and the fact that the conscripts were referred to as being "for breeding purposes" disgusted Keith, along with Shiro and everyone else on their strike team.

So, for now, they were sitting in the cargo hold with the fleet's latest delivery of food. They hid among boxes and crates of vacuum-sealed protofiber meals. Finally, they felt the floor shudder beneath their feet, and Keith looked at Shiro, who looked to Nexiti, who nodded in confirmation that the ship was taking off. For a few minutes, they simply sat in silence as they felt the ship glide out of the spaceport hangar and out into the darkness of space. Static crackled before the ship's intercom announced the shuttle's departure from Frontier Interplanetary Spaceport. Keith looked to his left to see Shiro, face pale and breathing hard, as leaving Kerberos behind was bringing back memories of his initial capture and all the trauma associated with it.

Keith turned and put a hand on Shiro's shoulder, Tactus taking the Black Paladin's hand.

"It's all in the past," Keith whispered as he and Shiro's boyfriend worked to help him through the panic attack. "You're safe here. The Empire doesn't know we're here. They can't hurt you anymore" While the second part was true, Keith and Tactus both knew that the first and last parts were outright lies. They wouldn't be safe until they either took control of the 11th fleet or returned to friendly territory. And the lingering questions of Shiro being captured by the empire a second time still simmered at the back of his mind, despite his efforts to avoid thinking about it. Nevertheless, his words seemed to do the trick. Shiro's breathing slowed, and his eyes lost their wild, panicked look as he finally calmed down. The Black Paladin looked at the two men on either side of him and blushed sheepishly. Shiro was about to open his mouth when Tactus cut in.

"Darling, if you try to apologize for having a perfectly human reaction to something that triggered a reminder of past trauma," the Gold interjected. "I will dye your hair and armor Pink for a month." Shiro laughed a little harder than his boyfriend's attempt at humor probably deserved, but Keith couldn't help but chuckle at Tactus' little moment of levity. It wasn't a particularly creative threat, but it did serve its purpose to lighten the mood. A few of the rebels with them snickered as they rode along in silence.

After about fifteen minutes into the shuttle's estimated one-hour flight time, Cylax si Nexiti turned to Shiro and nodded his head. Keith glanced at his friend, who nodded as he mouthed "it's time" before climbing down off the crate of food he'd been sitting on with Tactus. Keith turned on his mask and turned to follow, the purple highlights of his Marmora uniform glowing softly in the dim light of the cargo hold. With Nexiti hacked into the cameras to track security guards and loop any cameras they passed, the group activated their ghostCloaks and set off towards the ship's brig.

The plan was for them to observe the prisoners and attempt to determine if any of them were sympathetic to the Rising before recruiting them. News of what was happening in the Society was a luxury afforded only to the fleet's highColor officers. Not even the bridge crews were permitted to know what was happening in the solar system. Once aboard the flagship, Shiro planned to leak footage of the Battle of Mars, the Reaper's big speech in Agea, and Virginia's speech to the Senate on Luna to every warship in the fleet. The hope was that people who had been conscripted, or were descended from prior generations of conscripts, would be inspired to revolt against the fleet's Gold commanders and help the rebels take the ship. Keith personally doubted the efficacy of that plan, but he knew how important it was for Shiro that his friend at least make the effort of convincing people to change sides before declaring open war against the ship crews. He at least made sure that Shiro was aware and cognizant of the risks that came with the plan rather than deliberately ignoring them.

While Shiro and Tactus went to speak with the conscripts down in the brig, Keith and Nexiti camped out in a supply closet next to the communications center so that the latter could hack into the ship's com feeds. For thirty minutes, they listened through their own ear pieces to the mundane chatter of the ship's internal network. But halfway through the flight, the long range com opened up with an outgoing transmission.

 _"11th Fleet Garrison Dreadnaught Shirogane this is Supply Shuttle Epsilon-G57 requesting docking clearance,"_ the shuttle's comBlue droned. _"Transmitting transponder codes now."_

 _"Shuttle Epslion-G57 this is Shirogane Flight Control docking clearance has been granted,"_ a new voice, presumably a comBlue in the  _Classis Plutus_ , answered.  _"Please proceed to Hangar Bay Alpha to begin unloading cargo."_

 _"Copy Flight Control,"_ the comBlue for their shuttle replied.  _"Projected Eta in 26 Minutes, 35 Secs."_

Keith bit his lip to keep from laughing loud enough to blow their cover.  _What are the odds?_ Keith thought to himself at the realization that Shiro was about to lead an attempt to hijack a spaceship that had been named after him.  _Wow._ Keith thought _I guess some of us had a bigger impact on the course of history than we thought._   _I'll have to see what the other ships are named._ He'd never forget the look on his friend's face when Tactus used the naming to make a sex joke about docking with Shiro. It made Keith wish he had a camera so he'd have something to tease Shiro about later.

The mission to recruit the ship's conscripts had been a success. Half of them had already been held Prisoner by the Board of Quality Control and shuttled out to the Antarctica of the solar system to relieve a recent backlog in the Board's system. Whenever the Board had more prisoners than they had the resources to execute or torture, they shipped them out to the 11th fleet for conscription and the fleet's breeding program so that the Society might squeeze some use out of their bodies for a few years longer rather than simply killing them outright. None of these people had been given a choice in their recruitment, and Shiro's offer had been too tempting to resist. A few of the lowColors in the group had been wary of provoking their Golden overlords further, but most of the two dozen conscripts felt that it was worth the risk.

Keith didn't know whether it was cynical of him to feel that they wouldn't get such widespread conversion on the  _Shirogane_ and the other ships, but he doubted everyone would be fully persuaded. Many of the ships' crew members had spent their entire lives aboard their dreadnaughts. Only the conscripts had ever seen what the rest of human civilization had to offer.

With their mission accomplished, everyone had slipped back into the cargo hold. Nexiti's hacking of the ship's internal cameras meant that nobody had discovered the group was there. After another fifteen minutes of waiting, they felt the vibration of the ship's engines slow as it taxied in for a landing. A soft  _thump_ signaled that the ship had docked, and that it was time for them to get off the ship before 11th Fleet Browns and Oranges came to unload the food. There were a few close calls and near misses, but they managed to exit the cargo ship without incident.

As they moved across the hangar deck, jamFields silencing the sounds of their own footsteps, Keith turned to look outside the windows in the upper decks of the hangar and couldn't help but stop in surprise. Tactus bumped into him from behind and urged him to keep moving, but even after averting his gaze, Keith couldn't take his eyes off what he had seen. He'd managed to glimpse one of the modified dreadnaughts of the 11th fleet out the hangar's upper windows, and the ship's design aesthetic looked like a fusion of Galran and Altean.

Once they were certain that nobody had heard them, the strike team that was staying on the  _Shirogane_ ducked into a side passage in the bowels of the ship, where Golds never tread. The ceilings were low, meant for Red workers and Brown janitors. Once Nexiti swept for cameras and hacked the ones he found, everyone deactivated their ghostCloaks and leaned against the walls to catch their breath. A soft gasp jolted them out of their thoughts, and they turned to find a Red woman in what appeared to be her early forties standing there with a datapad and orange coveralls. Keith instinctively unsheathed his knife, but Shiro quickly held him back. The woman's eyes widened at the knife as she took in their cloaks and armor, clearly realizing the true purpose of the group that she had found.

Before anyone else could say or do anything, she put her finger to her lips and gestured for the strike team to follow her before turning on her heels and heading further down the cramped corridor. Everyone looked to Shiro for direction, aware that this could potentially be a trap. Shiro shrugged, as if to say that there was a chance it wasn't, and it was a risk worth taking. So they followed the Red until she lead them to an empty storage closet. Once the doors were locked and Nexiti activated a jamField.

"If you're here to take this ship," the woman finally said. "There's a good half the crew that'll support you. Everyone wishes the Goldbrows weren't in charge, but without an outside catalyst, they don't have the courage to act for themselves. You'll need to take the bridge first. It's the only way to keep them from venting us all into space if the crew revolts."

"Why are you helping us?" Keith blurted out. The woman smiled, and Nexiti looked as if he had seen a ghost.

"Been on this bloodydamn ship for almost twenty years," she answered. "Figured it was about time someone shook things up around here. Like I said, everyone here's got a beef with the Goldbrows, we just need someone to take out the venting controls on the bridge for us to have any chance of a successful rebellion."

"Well in any case, you have our thanks," Shiro commented as he shook the woman's hand. "I'm Shiro. And you are?"

"Bryn," the woman answered, the dull metal of her prosthetic a sharp contrast to the fire in her eyes that Keith found vaguely familiar. "Bryn of Cryssos."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes. I went there.


	26. Advance Guard

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no regrets about that cliffhanger by the way. Anyway, so yeah... Bryn's alive in this fic. In all honesty, this wasn't something I had been planning on until I started writing the previous chapter. I came up with the whole "conscript other colors for reproductive purposes" ideas to explain how the 11th fleet would be able to maintain a stable population without have each color's family tree more tangled up than the Targaryens. But it wasn't until I actually started planning what Keith and Shiro would do on the ship that the idea to include "prisoners the Board of Quality Control didn't have the resources to execute because of backlog" in the list of potential ways for the Classis Pultus to maintain its population size. And to be honest, once the idea to have Bryn turn out to be one of those conscripts popped into my head, there was no getting it out. Because of her death in canon, Howlers are forever left to the imagination when it comes to hypothetical interactions between Sevro and his mom is she were still alive. And now that I've gone and written her survival into my AU, well, there's no goryslagging way I'm not going to have a scene where Sevro gets to meet his mom in this fic. I'll elaborate more on what Bryn's been up to for the last twenty years in the next chapter, but you can rest easy knowing that she was able to avoid being forced into being a breeding tool for the Society.

####  _Shirogane_ Engine Deck

#### Kuiper Belt

#### March 24th, 2841

For a moment, Shiro was too stunned to move, unsure he had even heard the name correctly. But the look on Nexiti’s face was proof that this wasn’t a case of shared names or mishearing. The man had known Fitchner’s for years. He would know if this was simply another woman with the same name. _Sevro’s mother is alive,_ he thought, the implications staggering as he tried to process the fact. _How will he react when he hears? How much does she even know about what’s happening in the core?_

“You wouldn’t happen to know a Gold by the name of Fitchner au Barca would you?” he asked, testing the waters.

“I married him,” she answered cautiously. Suddenly, she turned to look at Nexiti and regarded him carefully, evidently recognizing the man but unable to place where she remembered him from.

“Cylax!?” Bryn exclaimed as her eyes widened. “What the bloodyhell are you doing here?”

“Long time no see, Bryn,” the Green replied. “We all thought you were dead.”

“I figured I’d be executed,” she said. “But apparently the eleventh fleet was short on bodies and Prefect Vardan decided that shunting me to the pucker end of the solar system away from my family would be a crueler punishment than execution.”

“Listen,” Keith interrupted. “I get that it’s been a long time since you’ve seen each other, but we’re on a clock here, and we’ve got a warship to take.” Bryn’s eyes narrowed in obvious suspicion as she turned to look at the rest of the group and appeared to notice the Gold standing among them for the first time.

“And who are you?” she demanded, focusing on the Gold and the two unknowns.

“Your son sent us,” Shiro answered, and that managed to get a reaction out of her. Her eyes widened in surprise.

“Sevro sent you?” Bryn whispered, as if daring to hope for the first time that her family was still alive. “What about Fitchner?”

“I’m so sorry,” Shiro replied solemnly. “He was killed a little over a week ago. Sevro took on his mantle as leader of the rebellion.”

“You keep talking about a rebellion,” Bryn commented. “And I’m not saying I don’t believe you don’t have the best interests of this ship’s crew at heart, but last I heard the only rebellion against Gold failed centuries ago.”

“Your husband started this one after we believed you dead,” Cylax answered. “Called it The Sons of Ares at first. Sevro’s taken up the mantle of Ares now that he’s gone. After your husband was killed the rebellion’s undercover agent within the ranks of Gold was discovered, and the Sons of Ares were forced into open war. But with the aid of your son and the Reaper, we managed to seize control of Mars itself.”

"You freed Mars?” she asked, incredulous. The news that Mars had fallen to a lowColor rebellion had evidently rekindled the long dormant spark of hope she’d kept buried in order to survive out on the edge of the solar system.

“And we’re conquering Luna as we speak,” Shiro answered. “The rebel leadership killed the Sovereign, and now the entire Society is in disarray.” Bryn turned to him, and her eyes narrowed in concentration.

“I’ve seen your face somewhere before,” she commented, putting a hand on her chin as she appeared to contemplate the thought. After her supposed death, her family’s photo album would have been destroyed or confiscated when the Board of Quality Control had raided her and Ficthner’s home all those years ago. Finally, Bryn’s eyes widened in recognition and she frantically started moving out back towards the main corridor. “Follow me,” she said. “I need to show you the Archive Room.”  

The Archive Room turned out to be a large space in the exact center of the ship. One side of the room was dedicated to the history of the warship itself. Important dates were engraved into the walls, while in front of the text sat low pedestals containing salvaged artifacts taken from alien ships as battle trophies. Approaching each item brought up a holographic screen describing where and when each scrap had been collected, and by who. A few Shiro even recognized by color as coming from Galra starfighters and battle cruisers. Others, he was chilled to realize, resembled engine components from the exteriors of Altean pods. But when he turned around to examine the other half of the room, he could only stare in stunned silence at what he saw.

It had felt weird enough seeing his face on screen when Mustang showed him the official announcement of the Kerberos mission’s disappearance on Luna so many months ago. It was another thing entirely seeing the same Garrison portrait hanging floor-to-ceiling on the wall of a Society warship. Two blocks of text flanked his image on either side. The left was his official bio that had been on the Garrison website before he had first left for Kerberos. As their poster boy, he was one of the few Garrison employees to have information about them posted online. Directly beneath the bio were his flight simulation scores, all the records he’d broken, and various other statistics about his career as a pilot.

In retrospect, he should have expected something like this when Keith told him that the flagship of the _Classis Plutus_ had been named after him. But seeing it in person was another thing entirely. And that was nothing compared to the text engraved along the wall to the right of his portrait. That was entirely new to him, and it made his blood boil.

_“In 2036, Captain Shirogane was selected to pilot the Galaxy Garrison’s mission to Kerberos, the farthest manned space flight in the history of space exploration. The mission arrived on Kerberos five months after their departure from Earth, but less than twenty-four hours after they had landed and set up base camp, they vanished without a trace. While the public story was that the ship had crashed due to pilot error and all crewmembers had been killed, Garrison probes on the edge of the system detected an unidentified object of massive size entering the solar system shortly before Mission Control lost contact with the crew and leaving shortly afterwards._

_With the knowledge that the crew of the Kerberos mission had been abducted by a potentially hostile extraterrestrial force, Galaxy Garrison began covertly preparing to defend earth against a potential alien invasion. A year later, an alien spacecraft crashed landed on Earth, just outside the Garrison’s main campus in Arizona, in what would eventually become the American Empire. Captain Shirogane was found alive inside the extraterrestrial ship, his hair in the process of turning white, with a long horizontal scar across his face, and his right arm replaced with a cyborg prosthetic._

_Though Shirogane was taken from quarantine by former Garrison cadet Keith Kogane, and was subsequently never seen again, his return to Earth was the first step along the path that eventually lead to the Conquering of Earth, and the colonization of the solar system. This ship, named in honor of the captain himself, developed using technology from the same ship he brought back to Earth, stands ready to guard Captain Shirogane’s legacy from all outside threats, to ensure that his abduction on Kerberos will not happen to anyone else._

In that moment, Takashi Shirogane saw red. He was barely aware of himself as he pulled out his razor and began carving into the walls where the final paragraph had been engraved. The marble walls of the archive were like butter against the hot surface of his razor in blade form. _I’m done,_ he thought to himself grimly. _I’m done pretending to be someone else. I’m done hiding who I really am for the sake of survival anymore. If people don’t want to believe I time traveled from eight centuries in the past, then I don’t quiznaking care._ When he had first heard that the 11th Fleet flagship had been named after him, he’d kept his helmet up. The _Classis Plutus_ was so isolated from the rest of the solar system that even if the ship’s highColor officers didn’t recognize him as a leader of the Rising, his face would probably be recognizable as that of the warship’s namesake.

But no more. He’d been fine with the anonymity when he believed that he and the rest of his team had made no impact on the history of Earth beyond the children they had had – or would have, from his perspective. But knowing now that this was his legacy, that the technology used to make it possible for the Sovereign to enforce this fascist color pyramid across the entire solar system had been developed in his name? Shiro had never been one to be concerned over one’s legacy. He always felt it best to let his actions and accomplishments speak for themselves. But it sickened him to think that this was how future generations of humanity remembered him. 

“Shiro,” Keith’s voice finally snapped through the haze of anger that had clouded his thoughts. The Red Paladin’s voice had sounded desperate, strained. Shiro turned to find a dozen Gray marines standing in the open doors leading into the ship’s mess hall. Low-ranked workers of a variety of Colors – Blue, Orange, Green, Violet, Pink, and Red – crowded behind the legionnaires to get good look at the intruders. His own troops had their weapons drawn and their fingers on triggers. But the Grays weren’t attacking. Instead, they looked stunned, eyes darting back and forth between the portrait on the wall and the rebel leader standing before then. Despite his anger, whoever had carved those words into the walls of the ship had just given the rebellion the match that would light the powder keg across the fleet.

“C… Ca… Captain Shirogane?” the lead marine spluttered in shock, taking in the sight of Shiro’s multicolor pulseArmor and the rebel insignias painted across it. “How are you…?”

“It’s a long story,” the Black Palaidn interrupted. “As you can guess by my being here, time travel is involved. I don’t know how or why I ended up eight hundred years from my own era, but what I’ve seen of this color hierarchy disgusts me. So, I’ve come on behalf of the Rising to take this fleet for the Reaper of Mars. I’d prefer to do this without hurting anyone, but if my comrades and I have to fight to take control of this ship, then we will.” He noticed movement in his peripheral vision and turned around in time to see half a dozen Golden knights charging into the room with their razors firm.

Shiro was about to let his own extend back into a blade again when six gunshots went off in rapid succession. Red dots and spatters of blood blossomed in the foreheads of the Golds, dropping them all like flies in an instant. He turned back to find the Gray marines blowing smoke away from the barrels of their weapons before holstering them again.

“We’re with you, sir,” the Gray in charge of the unit said firmly. “Name’s Tsuyoshi Seidou. Captain in the Fourteenth Legion. Just tell us what you need us to do.” Shiro smiled, feeling proud that he had been able to lay the groundwork he needed to take the ship with minimal bloodshed. They still had a long fight ahead of them just to take this ship, let alone the fleet, and he had no doubt that many of the highColors would fight to their last breaths, but this way the loss of life could be kept to a minimum. Back in his own time, he hadn’t really enjoyed the fame that came from being the Garrison’s top pilot, but if it mean saving lives, then there was no way he wasn’t going to take advantage of it in this moment.

The first thing he did was have the captain contact the security forces on other ships in the fleet, to spread the news that Takashi Shirogane was aboard the ship named in his honor and determine how many of them would be willing to fight for him. Meanwhile, Shiro himself contacted the rebel squads on other ships and directed them to link up with the sympathetic marine captains on their own vessels. Once that was done, he asked Captain Seidou for internal schematics of the _Shirogane_ and mapped out a plan of attack for what needed to be done to secure the ship. While they moved into the mess hall to plan their attack on the bridge, one of the Greens in the cafetiera gave Cylax access codes to the ship’s computer terminals so that the veteran Son of Ares could upload the footage they’d brought with them – Darrow’s speech in Agea, footage of the Second Battle of Mars, and Mustang taking the throne on Luna – for everyone on the ship to access. Thanks to sympathetic midColor conscripts on the other four relay ships, the other squads’ tech specialists would be doing the same. Once they took the bridge of the _Shirogane_ , the Blues would spread the footage to every other ship in the fleet. 

An hour later, everything was ready. Word had spread quickly throughout the ship, just as Shiro had wanted it to. Locked doors opened for them in seconds instead of the minutes it would have taken to melt through with a laser drill. As they moved, Cylax monitored the ship’s internal communications. The warship’s officers were scrambling to keep a lid on the identities of the intruders, doing everything they could to maintain the loyalty of their crew. One of the Blues on the bridge had apparently sabotaged the security feeds so that the Golds couldn’t see where in the ship the rebels were. _Good,_ Shiro thought to himself. _That’ll give us the element of surprise once we reach the bridge._ Along the way, they were joined by other crew members of all Colors. Gray, Orange, Obsidian, Red, Pink – they all armed themselves and joined the rising tide that swept through the ship.

Once they reached the lift, they rode up to the ship’s top level where the command deck was located. The doors opened to reveal a squad of armed marines. Shiro stood at the front of the group, his fury evident on his face as he marched out of the elevator. He didn’t expect the same instant conversion he got with Captain Seidou’s unit, but it was still satisfying when one of the Grays turned and fired on his squad mates, even as Shiro mourned the ones he cut down with his razor. The few that Shiro and the new defectors hadn’t killed were taken down by Tactus or the Sons of Ares. The young Legionnaire, Hiroshi, quickly joined the swelling ranks of those marching towards the bridge alongside the moonBreaker’s namesake, and Shiro turned to face the door.

Hiroshi slid his digital key into the bulkhead’s locking mechanism, and the doors slid open with the wheeze of hydraulics in the walls. The rebels surged onto the bridge, anticipating an ambush. Instead, they found Golds and Obsidian caught unprepared. To the left, near the bridge’s armory, a tactical squad of Obsidian and Grays secure heavy weapons and listen intently to their Gold commanders as they prepare to defend their bridge against the unknown intruders. It took three seconds for the Gold infantry commander to see them. As much as Shiro had come to enjoy the Howlers’ flare for the dramatic, predators killed best in silence. So, he pointed to the left and the Obsidian who had joined their group along the way surge toward the soldiers listening to the Gold.

Two Obsidian and three Gray infantrymen drop their assault cannons and raise their hands in surrender. The Gold shouts for his soldiers to turn, but the rebel Obsidian are on them before they can lift their weapons. Only two guns went off by the time the Gold’s body slides off the end of an IonBlade. Grays fire at them from the other side of the control pit, but Seidou and his marines pick them off. Shiro marches forward towards the bridge’s central command and the Golds in charge. A loyal Obsidian charged the rebels with a forcePike, only to be quickly felled by Tactus’ razor. Four others link together and begin keening one of their culture’s war chants. Tactus killed them as well with quick blasts of his pulseFist. Shiro raced forward to join his boyfriend as they engaged the last two Golds on the bridge, who quickly fell to their razors.

It was over in less than five minutes. The bridge was theirs now. But the battle was far from finished. Tactus and the ship’s comBlues cycled through live internal feeds of Oranges and Blues ransacking the armories. Some Grays helped. Other stood by, unsure of their duty even as other shot at the tide of their fellow shipmates. But bullet could never hold back this tide. The lowColors took weapons and ran sloppily through the halls, swelling their ranks. Orange hangar workers, Red maintenance workers, and Gray security forces lead the tide. A Gray captain directed a score of men and women into the stateroom of one of the Gold officers and peacefully subdue him.

They had done it. In less than two hours, they had seized control of the flagship of the 11th Fleet of Pluto. Now, it was time for him to make his presence known to the rest of the fleet. With a nod to the ship’s comBlue, he opened a com channel that would broadcast his words to every ship in the _Classis Plutus_. He turned to look at Keith and Tactus, who stood at the edge of the Blues’ command pit and nodded their encouragement. Shiro took a deep breath and opened his mouth to speak.

“This is Takashi Shirogane of the Galaxy Garrison.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, now Shiro's done with the fake names and fake backstory. When I decided to name the flagship of my OC fleet after him, I thought it would be interesting if anyone on the ship actually had photos from that time and recognized him as the missing Garrison pilot rather than as a rebel leader who'd masqueraded as a Gold. And thus, the idea of Shiro leveraging his notoriety among the fleet to his advantage. In other words, when he confronts the moon lords, he'll be introducing himself as Takashi Shirogane, rather than his alias of Shiro au Terranova. 
> 
> Virtual brownie points if you spot the GoLion references with the two named Grays in this chapter. (Hint: the names for the characters in the original anime who would become Pidge and Hunk in the 80s Voltron cartoon)


	27. The Coalition

####  _Shirogane_ Bridge

#### Kuiper Belt

#### March 24th, 2841

Keith couldn't keep the smile off his face as Shiro gave that big speech to the 11th Fleet. There were some things that Shiro wasn't going to make public, but he at least covered the bare bones of what the crew members of the  _Classis Plutus_ needed to know to understand how the  _Shirogane's_ namesake had arrived in the Society from 21st Century Earth. With how quickly the tide had turned in their favor here aboard the flagship, it looked like Shiro's faith wasn't so unrealistic after all.  _The other ships probably won't be as quick to join the rebellion,_ the more cycnical side of his mind whispered. But he pointedly ignored those whispers and let his brother enjoy the moment.

He blinked at the thought. He had long seen Shiro as a big brother, but he'd never really articulated it like that before, not even to himself. But when it came down to it they were brothers, in every way except biology. Shiro had been there for Keith for more than four years before Kerberos. After years of bouncing from Foster Home to Foster Home, getting into the garrison under Shiro's mentorship had been the first source of stability he'd had in his life since his dad died.

His train of thought was knocked off course when the ship rocked, and a rattling boom reverberated through the bridge. Keith stumbled as he struggled to regain his footing. Shouts echoed as the rest of the main body of rebels got their balance back.

"What was that!?" Keith exclaimed as the room stopped shaking, only for another blast to rock the bridge.

"Railgun fire from the dreadnaught  _Alexandria_ ," one of the Blues called up from the command pit. "Forty percent of the fleet appears to remain in enemy hands."

"We'll have to take those command ships the old-fashioned way," Shiro commented. "What have we got in our hangars that can fly?" While the bridge officers listed out the numbers of ripWings, leechCraft, and torchShips on board, Keith analyzed the holographic maps floating on the bridge.  _So much for an instant conversion,_ Keith thought to himself. Now it looked as if they were going to have to fight tooth and nail to take control of the rest of the  _Classis Plutus_. Keith had studied contemporary tactics. He knew that this was about to become a war of boarding parties. LeechCraft launched from the remaining enemy ships by the hundreds, headed to retake the vessels the rebellion had just captured.

The Sons of Ares' com channel was on fire with squad leaders requesting instructions. Shiro was quickly being pulled in too many directions at once, rebel commanders on the com in one ear, and the  _Shirogane_ 's bridge crew in the other, each looking to the great Takashi Shirogane for direction. But Shiro couldn't coordinate the rebel forces on other ships and command this one at the same time. Keith didn't like being in the role of the leader, but for Shiro's sake, he could stomach it for a short time.

"Open up our mid-range guns," the Red Paladin ordered as he turned to the gunBlues. "Focus on defense. Captain Seido, I want every Obsidian on the ship with experience in Zero-G to suit up and report to the spitTubes in Hangar Bay Alpha." Shiro's recollections of how the Reaper of Mars captured the  _Pax_ drifted to the forefront of Keith's mind. If they could get enough people to repeat that trick, they might be able to capture one or two more warships for the rebellion before the enemy vessels adjusted their defenses.

"And why should we gorydamn trust you?" a Blue down in the control pits called out.

"Because he's my brother," Shiro snapped. "In every way but blood. He's as good a pilot as I am, if not better. I have fought beside him for months and I trust him with my life. I expect everyone here to treat him as you would me. Is that understood?"

"YES SIR!" the remaining Blues shouted. The lone complainer still looked skeptical, but grudgingly nodded. Keith felt nervous. Leading Voltron was one thing. They all knew each other, had fought alongside each other, and were intimately aware of their lion's capabilities. By contrast, he'd had a week of study in the tactics and specifications of Aureate fleet warfare, and the only people on this ship who really knew him were too busy with their own roles in the battle to provide support.  _Don't think about that,_ he told himself.  _Shiro is trusting you to command this ship so he can coordinate the battle. So let's do this._

Warships on both sides opened fire with their mid-range artillery, massive barrages of twenty-kilogram munitions careening through space at Mach eight. Flak shield' bloomed over the enemy formation as the ships still loyal to the Society drifted together to shore up each other's defenses. Amid both clusters of ships, PulseShields throbbed iridescent blue as munitions cracked into them and careened off into space. Metal shredded metal, as ships vented oxygen and men. But these ships were built to take a beating. Keith had studied as much of the military technology of the Society as he could before they left Mars. Each warship was a huge hulk of metal subdivided into thousands of interlocking honeycombed compartments designed to isolate breaches and prevent ships from venting after a single hit. After spending so much time in Altean castles and Galra warships capable of faster-than-light travel, standing on the bridge of the  _Shirogane_ was a sobering reminder for Keith of the sheer scale of space combat. The smallest corvettes were each four hundred meters long. TorchShips were half a kilometer. Three hundred kilometers separated the rebel ships from the enemy formation. That kind of distance would have barely noticeable in the Galra fighter they'd left behind on Kerberos. Wouldn't have even registered aboard the Castle of Lions. But here, on a warship that took months at top speed to travel distances that a Voltron lion could cover in seconds, Keith was reminded of how large these battles really were.

From there, the battle proceeded apace, with Shiro periodically calling out orders for Keith to change targets or adjust his field of fire as the 11th Fleet Flagship bore down on the enemy formation. After fifteen minutes of ship-to-ship combat, a new alarm pierced the cacophonic shell of klaxons and a message box flashed on the bridge's battle display. Unlike the collision alarms from the incoming missiles of enemy ships, the warnings for this alert were blinking far more urgently.

"Dom- I mean… Sir!" one of the comBlues shouted over the roar of the alarm. "Our probes have detected multiple unidentified objects entering our solar system."

"Meaning…?" Tactus interjected.

"It means we've got alien ships incoming!" Keith shouted to be heard over the blaring klaxons. It seemed that the rest of the other ships of the 11th Fleet were getting similar alerts, because the streams of enemy missiles and boarding craft stopped in their tracks, and impact alarms began to die off as both sides waited, holding their breaths to see what would happen. Sure enough, a moment later, large glowing circle opened in the middle of space at the edge of the fleet's perimeter. Everyone else on the bridge stood in confusion, but Keith and Shiro recognized a wormhole created by an Altean Teludav.

Right on cue, five ships of Altean design, the smallest of which was equal in size with the  _Shirogane_ , emerged from the wormhole and sailed up to the edge of the Kuiper Belt. Keith's com crackled in his ear as other squad leaders such as Evey, Fenix, and Wulfgar called requesting instructions for how to proceed.

"Orders, sir?" the ship's gunners asked from their stations in the command pit.

"Hold your fire," Shiro muttered. The Blues looked at him like they were suddenly unsure of his judgement but complied. Keith quickly relayed the order to the rebel forces on other ships. "I recognize that tech," Shiro went on. "They might be friendly. Open a hailing frequency."

"Attention unknown vessels," the Black Paladin began. "This is Takashi Shirogane of the 11th Fleet. Please identify yourselves."

In response, a holographic image appeared as the possibly-Altean fleet responded. As the signal connected, a familiar insignia appeared in the air over the communications terminal, one that Keith and Shiro both recognized. It was the same emblem that adorned the back of the Green Lion's shield. Hovering in a circle beside the insignia was text that Keith could clearly identify as Altean. He hadn't really tried learning the written language the way Pidge had, but he'd picked up enough of what Pidge had learned during his training with the Blade –  _before he'd left the team_ , he reminded himself - to recognize what those two words meant.  _Voltron Coalition._ The sound of Shiro sucking in a deep gasp of breath clued him in that his fellow Paladin recognized the symbol too. Even if he couldn't read the text.

Finally, the transmission finished buffering, and a new hologram shimmered in the air to replace the insignia. A thousand questions raced through Keith's mind, just as he was sure they were racing through Shiro's. But in that instant, he could only focus on one.  _Why was the Coalition here?_ The question was soon answered when the holo solidified into the form of an armored woman with dark skin and pure white hair. She looked older, more whethered and battle hardened, but there was no way either Paladin of Voltron wouldn't recognize their princess and friend.

"Allura?" Keith gasped. "But… what… how…" New questions added themselves to the flood inside his head as he tried to process the fact that Allura was here. Intellectually, he knew that Alteans were a long-lived species. Hunk had told everyone about Coran's claims of being over six hundred years old. But somehow since ending up in this era, it had never occurred to him, nor to Shiro, that out of all their friends, Allura could conceivably still be alive in this time.  _Not that my coms or Shiro's Paladin armor would have had the range to reach the Castle of Lions anyway,_ he thought regretfully. Before his thoughts could go any farther down the rabbit hole, Allura's voice interrupted him.

"It is a long story," the Altean princess replied with a smile. "I'll fill you in later. Which ships still haven't been taken yet?" Keith's brain felt like a record that just had the needle scratch in the middle of playing it.  _She knew what we'd be doing?_ He thought to himself.

"I'm sorry, what?" he blurted out before he'd had a chance to think through his response. Shiro and Tactus glanced back at him incredulously, although they looked far less upset than the communications officer, who looked like he was ready to strangle Keith for bungling what the man saw as humanity's first contact with an alien civilization.

"When you returned from this era, you told me I'd arrive in time to help you take this 11th Fleet," she answered. "So here I am." Keith blinked, stunned at her admission, even as her words filled him with hope at the realization that he and Shiro were guaranteed to make it back to their own time.

"We're glad you're here, Princess," Shiro replied. As he spoke, he pulled up the tactical data for the battle that had been raging mere minutes agao. "I assume since you knew to come here that I left – or from our perspective, will leave – you with communications tech that's compatible with contemporary systems?"

"Precisely," Allura confirmed with a nod. "We've kept it in good shape over the last eight centuries. No need to send the information over. Just make sure you still have it when you go back to your original era."

"Okay," Shiro commented. "I'll keep that foreknowledge in mind. In the meantime, we need to hijack the enemy ships with minimal casualties, but we don't have the manpower for prolonged boarding parties."

"You're fortunate that I came prepared then," the princess replied, then turned to address someone on her own ship. "Romelle, launch all pods."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the Cavalry has arrived. With how long Altean livespans are (Coran, by his own admission in "Tears of the Balmera" is over 600 years old), it's not inconceivable to believe that Allura would still be alive in this time period.


	28. Scar Hunters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter took so long, and that there was no chapter on Saturday. I needed to run to the library to get my hands on a copy of Iron Gold in the hopes of grabbing some reference info to use in this chapter, so it took me longer than usual to write it.

#### Endymion

#### Luna

#### March 24th, 2841

Luna was burning. The interlocked cityscape was a roar of sound as a cauldron of clouds swirled around the highest skyscrapers. Veins of flame bled across the horizon as war and riots raged across the moon. If Shiro were here, he'd probably make a comment comparing the sight to a scene from an Old Earth disaster movie. Despite Darrow's best efforts to minimize civilian casualties, the Gold loyalists continued to fight tooth and nail for control of Luna. The capital city of Hyperion was secure, along with the Lost City and several other areas, but large swaths of the moon remained in enemy hands. Imbrium and Endymion were currently where the loyalists were the most strongly concentrated.

The overhead lights of their assault shuttle pulsed an alien green as they cut through the skies toward the outskirts of Endymion. The fighting in the metropolitan areas was so intense that the city center was engulfed in a constant fog of ash. But out on the fringe, the interlocked cityscape was quiet, save for the crackling of fires that continued to burn long after the battle had migrated downtown. Looking out the window as he stood in the shuttle's cockpit, Darrow thought that Endymion looked more like a molten ruin than a pinnacle of human achievement. Trigg and his fiancé Ephraim stood behind the Reaper in the cockpit, wishing each other luck as they armed themselves for battle. Sevro remained in the flight cabin overseeing the troops as everyone prepared their weapons to face the next battle.

When loyalist forces began to push back against the Rising's conquest, Darrow had broken up the rebel army into smaller battle groups coordinated by Victra. In the meantime, Darrow and Cassius each took a strike team and carved their way across the moon, assisting battle groups where they were needed or engaging Society encampments themselves. Each strike team was comprised of a mixture of pro-rebel Golds (from the Howlers, the Reformers, or Darrow's army from the Institute), Sons of Ares soldiers, and Luneburn volunteers. With loyalist forces concentrated around defending two cities, the two teams had gone in opposite directions. Cassius had taken his group and flown off to capture Imbrium city, leaving Darrow's team to conquer Endymion.

Pulling out a set of long range scopes, Darrow looked out to see bodies in gravBoots jumping between towers spaced kilometers apart, usually followed or preceded by explosions as one side attempted to attack the other or to flee. Floodlamps in the distant marked temporary encampments as the city whirled in a dance of chaos and death. A ripWing painted with the Gold marks of the Society attempted to shoot down their shuttle, only for the rebel pilot to shred it with the assault shuttle's guns himself. It chilled Darrow's soul to watch the city burn. Every sign of destruction felt like an indictment of his planning and ability to influence people. It felt like the strand of his life was so strong that everyone else's, including those of his friends, frayed around him.

Their conquest of Luna had started out well at first. With the aid of the fleet defections in orbit and the reformers in the senate, they'd quickly secured control of government, military, and municipal buildings in several major cities before those loyal to Octavia could organize a counterattack against the Rising's sudden coup de tat. By the time the Hierarchy loyalists retaliated, the Sons of Ares had control over forty percent of Luna's surface. With the aid of lowColor civilians, loyalist resistance was quickly overrun in another twenty percent of cities. But it was now that they were down to conquering the last third of the moon that casualties began to skyrocket.

With the rendezvous coordinates for the rebel base camp taking them into the gloom, they had no choice but to fly straight into the firestorm. Sagging girders and dangling walkways kept emerging from the smoke as they flew among the skyscrapers. Silhouettes ranking from ghostly and pale to dark and solid were visible from the cockpit window, backlit by the glow of burning buildings and flaming shipwrecks. In the distance, a bombed-out skyscraper collapsed in on itself, bringing two of its neighbors down with it. Darrow didn't even want to think about how many people might have been killed in the building alone, let alone how many were crushed by the falling debris.

Suddenly, the cockpit exploded, and Darrow's back slammed against the wall, the bulkhead buckling under the force of the explosion. Trigg and Ephriam were flung backwards into the flight cabin. The Reaper quickly blinked the spots out of his vision as the glare of the explosion faded. The pilot was dead. The Sarissa missile had taken burst through the ceiling and taken off the top half of the Blue's body before punching through the floor. The wind shrieked, and in the flight cabin behind him, emergency masks fell into the laps of Rising soldiers. Warning sirens warbled as pressure rushed from the ship, whipping Darrow's hair as he retracted his demonHelm into his armor.

He could see the glow of the fires through the hole in the floor, and clouds of ash through the ceiling as smoke seeped into the shuttle. Everything human in Darrow was screaming, but this was not the time to panic. Grabbing the breath mask from the control console, he angled himself with the roll of the ship until he was able to fall into the empty co-pilot's chair. He landed awkwardly against the armrest but managed to drag himself into the seat and buckle in.  _You can do this,_ he reminded himself as he put his hands in the control gel. He'd learned how to pilot small craft like this at The Academy in case of emergencies like this. Hopefully he still remembered enough to land the ship safely.

More warning lights pulsed on the blood-drenched console. He spared a glance back into the cabin to see rebel troops bracing themselves for impact as the ship began its unexpected descent. His gut was vibrating, and his teeth clattered in his skull as the ship lurched downward. Thinking quickly, Darrow turned the ship to the left, in the direction the Sarissa missile had come from, hoping to spot the rooftop from which they'd been fired upon. Sure enough, he spotted an armored Golden knight in armor on the roof of a moderately sized skyscraper reloading his rocket launcher for a second attack. The Reaper manipulated his hands in the control prism and angled the ship so that it was bearing down on the unlucky bastard who'd had the guts to shoot down an enemy craft.

As soon as the Gold saw the ship heading their way, they turned around and started running towards the access door. But it was too late. There was a muffled crunch as the enemy gunner was crushed beneath the bulk of the tower as it skidded along the rooftop. Darrow engaged his helmet and felt the gel-like crash webbing tighten around his body as the nose of the shuttle ground to a halt just past the opposite edge of the building. A third of the assault ship dangled over open air, kept in place by the combined weight of the troops in the back half of the ship. Darrow quickly cut the engines and routed the ship's external cameras to his datapad.

"Everyone move to the back half of the ship!" he ordered as he disconnected the safety harness and carefully stood up from the co-pilot's seat. Moving slowly so as not to upset the ship's precarious balance, he made his way toward the back of the ship and only stopped to let out his breath once he'd made it safely back to the flight cabin. Sevro met him at the door to the cockpit, already chewing a piece of gum as he barked orders to their troops.

"Did we lose anyone else?" Darrow asked.

"Naw," Sevro commented. "A few broken ribs and shattered femurs but we'll live. Gonna have to leave the wounded here with a field medic till they can get proper medical attention." Darrow sighed in relief.

"At least it's not the worst-case scenario," the Reaper commented. Their shuttle was down a few kilometers from the rendezvous point, but thus far the only casualty was the pilot. As Darrow joined the Howlers and the rest of the strike team in the shuttle's cargo bay, an alert popped up on his datapad that the ship's external sensors had detected movement. He pulled up the display to find a squad of Praetorians in clad in their recognizable black and purple armor advancing on the shuttle with weapons primed. Darrow nodded to Sevro and turned to brief their troops.

It took them ten minutes to eliminate the Praetorian squad. With the rooftop clear, Darrow kicked open the stairwell door leading down into the building and lead his soldiers inside. Infrared vision in their demonHelms alerted them to the presence of additional Praetorians guarding one of the doors into the main building ten floors below them.  _So this isn't just another staging post for the Society,_ Darrow thought to himself as he convened Sevro and Trigg to discuss how to proceed.

A minute later, he leaped over the railing and let his gravBoots close the distance like a cheetah. He brought himself up short and decapitated the enemy troops before they could even react to his presence. With the coast clear, the rebel force followed down the stairwell. Once the group was together, he lead them single file out of the stairwell and into the hallway. The floor consisted of one long hall that encircled what appeared to be a large conference room. After taking one last moment to check their gear, Darrow forced the doors open, and the rebels charged forward to find themselves inside the enemy's command center.

A majority of the room was occupied by a handful of frantic, bedraggled midColors. lowColors milled about on the opposite end of the room stood Moira au Grimmus, ArchLegate Lucius au Sejanus, and two Peerless knights. The Storm Knight stood to the left of the Fury, while at the side of the ArchLegate stood Venetia au Rein, the previous Morning Knight before Cassius. Everyone only had a few seconds to blink and process the other side's presence. Low and midColors scrambled to safety through other exits as the room gathered its breath, seams straining, and metaphorical lungs fit to burst, with exhalation only a moment a way. Then Darrow fired the first shot, the loyalist command center erupted into a vortex of chaos and explosions.

Moira rushed to impale Sevro from behind with her razor as he tried to move past a Reformer, who was engaged fighting the two Olympic Knights, to get at Sejanus. Darrow fired his pulseFist point-blank into her side just before she could reach the new Ares. The pulseShield in her armor absorbed the first few rounds, creating a rippling blue cocoon around her. She stumbled sideways, and if Darrow hadn't continued to fire, she would have had nothing more than a bruise by the following morning. But today, Darrow's middle finger was heavy on the trigger of his weapon. In addition to her service as an engineer of oppression and one of the brightest minds of Gold, she had tried to kill Sevro.  _Bad move._

Darrow kept firing until her shields buckled inward. Until she fell to one knee. Until she twitched and screamed as the molecules of her skin and organs began to superheat. Boiling blood came out of her eyes and nose. Armor and flesh fused together, and Darrow felt the rage rise in him. He was the Reaper who slew Karnus. Who Gold could not kill. For the last week, he had tried to show mercy towards the Golds he faced in battle. But these circumstances would not permit mercy or compassion towards his adversaries. The Furies and the Olympic Knights who'd pledged them their loyalty were too dangerous to be taken alive. The only option was to kill on sight.

Moira's pulseFist fired wildly as her fingers contracted from the heat, shooting into the ceiling on full automatic. The woman twitched sideways, sending a stream of death across the room. Some of her own allies explode as they run for shelter. Howlers, Sons of Ares, and other rebel troops scramble for cover until the pulseFist glows molten on Moira's left hand and the barrel overheated to melt inward with a corrupt fizzle. With that last gasp of rage, the wisest of the Sovereign's Furies now lay dead in a charred husk.  _Two down, one to go._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So two Furies are dead. Now that leaves the Ash Lord, Atalantia, and the Moon Lords. I know I wasn't planning on taking a hiatus for the rest of the summer, but with all the news coming out of comic con, I feel like I need to take a break for a few weeks, both to give myself a solid idea of what I want to do re: the existence of Adam in this fanfic series. The main reason I decided to pair Shiro and Tactus together was twofold: 1) I wasn't really a big fan of any of the existing ships for Shiro in the Voltron fandom, and 2) I wanted to give Tactus a happy ending. I still feel in hindsight that I rushed it a bit but I felt it would have had a bit more sense than Shiro and Cassius. But the reveal of SDCC at comic con this past weekend that Shiro had a boyfriend back on Earth who he was almost engaged to has completely thrown my future plans out of wack. 
> 
> So I'm going to ask my readers for some feedback. Which would you prefer (Keep in mind, and I'm spoiling a bit here, that I plan to send Tactus, Cassius, and Lysander back to the VLD time period with Shiro and Keith):
> 
> A) Shiro and Tactus stay together to the bitter end, have an arc in my third story that deals with Adam coming to terms with the fact that Shiro has moved on, and pair Adam up with Cassius.
> 
> Or
> 
> B) Shiro and Tactus break up amicably (seriously considering because I haven't managed to actually write any scenes where they're interacting together outside of battle-related stuff), Shiro gets back together with Adam, Tactus hooks up with Cassius.


	29. Operation Kuron

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After the announcment at SDCC of Shiro's ex-fiance Adam, I've been wracked with indecision over how to handle it in the story. Should I have Adashi be endgame the way I and much of the fandom felt it was going to be on the show? Or did I stick to my guns with the Shiro/Tactus pairing? Eventually, I came to a decision: I'm not going to ignore Adam's existence, but I'm going to embrace the fact that this is an AU fic and tweak the backstory a bit. Instead of being engaged, Adam could be Shiro's first boyfriend, who he broke up with amicably years before Kerberos. Even though they've both moved on, they're still good friends. This way, I can include him in Shiro's backstory without feeling like I'm erasing their canon relationship in favor of a different pairing.

#### Altean Pod

#### En route to Luna

#### March 24th, 2841

Operation Kuron.

That was what Allura had said Haggar’s plan had been called. Shiro didn’t care about the irony that the project’s purpose was right in the name, or question how the Galra had even learned enough Japanese to use it. He imagined Haggar had seen his memories while they were being copied, but he didn’t care to think about the details of what had been done to him. Words didn’t begin to cover how violated he felt knowing that the Galra Empire had cloned him. It felt like they had stolen a piece of his soul, ripped a chunk out of him that he could never get back. They had cloned him.

Suddenly all his and Keith’s questions and confusion regarding the timeline of his return to the team had been answered. All the contradictions in behavior made sense. He had never returned to the team at all. His clone wouldn’t have the memories of his time in this era. The fact that Shiro could rest easy knowing nothing had happened to Tactus and he hadn’t deliberately driven Keith away just to complete the time loop was comforting but was drowned out in the face of his own tumultuous thoughts.

Despite the anger he felt towards the empire, he couldn’t find it in himself to hate his clone. While it was true that the clone had been subconsciously programmed to sew discord among the team, he still had all of Shiro’s memories, and until Shiro and Keith returned from the past nobody, not even the clone himself, had noticed anything suspicious that couldn’t be explained by the trauma of waking up back in the hands of the empire after their fight with Zarkon with no memory of what happened in between. The fact that the empire had taken a piece of his dna and copied it enough to grow a duplicate of him unnerved Shiro to his core, but he couldn’t bring himself to hate his doppelganger.

Knowing that he and Keith would make it back had opened emotional wounds he’d thought had healed over a long time ago, forcing him to think about things he’d been trying to avoid thinking about ever since he’d first been captured. He’d locked up all those thoughts in a metaphorical box at the back of his mind, then tightened those metaphorical locks when he’d found himself stranded on Luna in this time. But now, hearing confirmation form Allura herself that he would make it back tore the locks open and left everything storming through his mind like a hurricane.

The implications of a time loop, that no matter the outcome of their war against the Galra Empire, the paladins of Voltron would be unable to prevent the rise of the Hiearchy of Color even if they managed to return to Earth incognito…

The impact he and his fellow Paladins had made on Earth’s history…

His own personal turmoil aside, today had been a good day. All fifty-six capital ships of the _Classis Plutus_ were now under the control of the Rising. Allura and the Voltron Coalition had promised to lend their support to the Solar Republic. The Rim-bound rebel fleet had reached Jupiter’s orbit, and the Arcos family had reclaimed control of their estate on Europa, using their family castle to conquer the rest of the ocean moon. The Norvo fleet was continuing outward towards Triton, and rebel forces had gained control of communication satellites across the Rim, enabling rebel forces on the Jovian moons to coordinate their strikes. Sons of Ares forces on Triton, led by Sevro’s aunt, Rhianna, had taken control of Triton’s northern hemisphere and were waging war among the moons of Neptune.

After six months of slow-moving Society warships, it would take some time for Shiro to readjust to the high speeds of Altean technology again. He and Allura had left the _Classis Plutus_ back in the Kuiper belt under the joint command of Tactus and the Sons of Ares, and after a five-minute flight, they were already approaching the Rubicon beacons, a sphere of transponders each floating one million kilometers beyond Earth’s core. He’d prefer to be out in the field planning their liberation of the Rim, but to solidify a formal alliance between the Solar Republic and the Voltron Coalition, he and Keith needed to be there in person to vouch for Allura’s intentions.

Keith and Tactus remained in the Kuiper belt consolidating their ships as Romelle and a team of engineers provided repairs, maintenance, and upgrades to the newly acquired hybrid fleet. He’d been able to establish contact with Mustang and the rest of their band of rebels on Luna and bring them up to speed on the latest development. Unfortunately, Sevro had been out of contact on the front lines at Endymion with Darrow, so Shiro had asked Mustang to relay the message to the new Ares that his mother was alive. When she heard her husband’s fate, and that her son was one of the leaders of the rebellion, Bryn had insisting on returning to Luna with them so she could reunite with the only family she had left.

“What else do I need to know?” Shiro asked as the Altean Princess sat with him in the pod’s storage area. Bryn sat awkwardly to the side, aware of the history the two shared but not sure whether she should be a part of the conversation. Allura offered Shiro a sad smile, understanding what he was thinking. According to the princess, he and Keith returned from the future right after the Battle of Naxzela, with Tactus, Cassius, and Lysander in tow. They’d exposed the existence of Operation Kuron, but other than Allura’s vague comments about secrets they wouldn’t have discovered otherwise,

“I can’t tell you everything,” she answered. “As much as I want to, there are some things that we need to discover on our own in order to preserve the time stream.”

“Can you at least tell me what you can share?” he asked again. “The things you find out from Keith and I, at least?”

"Lotor is half-Altean," she began. "The son of Zarkon and Honerva. A century or so after the fall of Altea, he sought out the survivors. The Alteans who had been off-world when our planet was destroyed. He created a refuge for them, where they could hide from the Empire, and from his father. While he did the best he could, his efforts to protect our people as a whole resulted in the deaths of hundreds of innocent Alteans. We were all horrified to learn of that at first, but the direction of the war soon forced me to realize that he'd been in a position where he had no choice that wouldn't leave blood on his hands. It took until we left for Oriande for you and Keith to convince him to tell us about the colony and come clean about what he'd done." 

"I'll keep that in mind," Shiro commented. "What else can you tell me?"

“You and your friends from this era managed to rescue Pidge and Matt’s father.

“What about the lion swapping?” he asked.

“That was complicated for a while,” Allura said. “Ryou was more than willing to step down and return the Black Lion to you, but for the first few movements, you chose to strike out with your Gold friends to target specific installations based on the information I give you before you go back, taking advantage of the fact that you could be in two places at once to confuse the Empire’s intelligence.” Shiro had to chuckle at that.

“Keith went back to the Blade of Marmora for a mission to extract his mother from her undercover assignment on the Empire’s borders. After my journey to Oriande and the Alteans’ exodus from the hidden colony, the flight roster reverted back to how it was when we first met. I stepped back from piloting to concentrate on leading my people, coordinating with the Coalition, and practicing the alchemical knowledge I’d gained. Ryou stepped away from piloting the Black Lion and joined your friends on their combat missions while you returned to the Black Lion. After Keith and his mother returned to the castle with Romelle, he returned to the Red Lion, and Lance stepped back into Blue.”

Shiro nodded in acknowledgement, still processing his thoughts on that. On the one hand, he missed the feeling of sitting in the Black Lion’s cockpit. But on the other hand, the team had grown so much without him there, and he felt bad about forcing Allura out of a role she’d grown used to over many months.

“I’m sorry you had to step away from being a Paladin,” he said. She placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t be,” Allura replied. “It had been my choice…” Her voice trailed off sadly, and it took Shiro a second to realize that it wasn’t because of the Lion situation.

“Of course,” she went on sadly. “I did become the Blue Paladin again after Lance passed away.” Shiro was on the verge of demanding to know who had killed him when he realized that Allura’s word choice didn’t indicate their friend had been killed in combat. It was funny how easily he forgot that the Princess was close to a thousand years old by now. She would outlive all the human paladins, whether they died in battle or from old age. “It’s humbling to know that for a species so quick to grow old, you all selflessly help brighten the universe for the brief moment you shine,” she finished. And after a statement like that, Shiro couldn’t stop himself from giving the alien princess a hug.

As he lay back in the cargo bay, he found himself thinking of his first boyfriend, Adam. They had broken up years before Kerberos, but like the old saying went, one never forget their first love. Despite their breakup, he and Adam still cared about each other, maintaining a friendship they’d built up from flying together for years. What he had with Tactus was different from what he’d had with Adam – and not just because his and Tactus’ relationship was steeped in the insanity of this entire rebellion – but he could easily imagine spending the rest of his life with the Rath scion. If they ever returned to Earth, Shiro would have to see about brining Adam and his husband with them. Shiro and Adam had promised years ago to be Best Men at each other’s weddings, and since Shiro had done so for Adam, the Black Paladin had a feeling it would be Adam’s turn eventually.

“Princess, we’re being hailed,” the Altean pilot announced over the intercom. Shiro could imagine every ship in Luna’s orbit locking their guns on the alien spaceship until they determined what it was and if it was a threat. Allura patched him into the coms in time to hear a ripWing patrol demand that they identify themselves.

“This is Commander Terranova of the Rising,” he answered, taking the lead to ensure that they would have landing clearance. For added measure, he opened the channel to display their message visually, ignoring the questioning glance Allura shot him at the continued use of his Aureate alias. His gauntlet displayed the corresponding image of the Blue currently aiming its guns at their ship. “I’m coming with an extraterrestrial delegation to negotiate terms of an alliance with the Republic.” The woman’s eyes widened

“What can never die?” she asked. Shiro immediately recognized the code phrase. It was lewd for his taste, but it was an effective in joke that only the people who were supposed to know it would understand.

“The fungus under Ares’ sack,” he answered with an embarrassed grin.

“Welcome back to Luna sir,” the Blue replied with a smile. “Sorry about the verification code. Just needed to make sure it was really you.”

“No need to apologize,” Shiro said. “I understand completely. Could you please let the Sovereign know I’ve arrived? She should be expecting me by now.”

“Yes sir!” the woman recited before signing off. A minute later, another transmission came through with landing clearance and directions to a landing pad on the grounds of the Citadel. _Alright,_ he thought to himself as he felt the ship shudder from the landing. _Time to go be a diplomat._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will try to get back to my usual schedule of updating every Saturday and Monday this weekend. The next chapter will be focused on Mustang reflecting on her relationship with her brother while she visits him in prison, followed by a Darrow chapter. Allura's bit musing on humanity's short lifespan is based on a tumblr post I found speculating about the lions' perspectives on everything.
> 
> https://koopytron.tumblr.com/post/171506347663/im-in-a-glass-case-of-emotions
> 
> EDIT 12/21/18: I've completely reworked my plans for Lotor (especially because I'm not happy with how Season 8 handled Present Day him (Baby Lotor in every reality was adorable), so I had to make some adjustments based on my own personal theories that S8 did nothing to disprove.


	30. Cain and Able

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone. Sorry for the delay. Between waiting for Season 7 to come out and writer's block, this chapter took longer than it should have. I already have the next chapter written out, so I'm going to try and get back to my regular Saturdays & Mondays posting schedule tomorrow. I borrowed a fair amount of dialogue from Mustang and the Jackal's interactions in Morning Star, and I also took some inspiration from some Tumblr posts discussing the ways that Nero abused both of them, along with the dialogue between Nebula and Gamora in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2.

#### Hyperion

#### Luna

#### March 24th, 2841

Virginia au Augustus was quiet as she walked the halls of the Citadel of Light. While the Rising held tactical superiority over the surface of Luna, the battle continued to rage. After Darrow had secured Endymion, fighting with the remaining Society loyalists had intensified as Cassius closed in on Imbrium. At least there was some good news on that front, however. With Endymion taken, the unity of loyalist forces was beginning to fracture. While the victory-or-death fanatics continued to battle Cassius's forces in Imbirum, Caravans of trading vessesl from the Rim cluttered the Via Appia above the northern Lunar hemisphere.

The Flaminius AstroDocks were one of the few places still in enemy hands, and so backlogs of civilian vessels staggered their way back along the Via Flamminia waiting to pass through inspection before evacuating the moon to descend into Earth's atmosphere. The high-class elite had already been fleeing the moon since the Rising first arrived, but when the Reaper took Endymion, the vessels hurled themselves into a frenzy. Many ships burst from their ordered queue to race for Venus. Some tried to bypass the docks entirely and burn for Earth. They flared silver and white as Loyalist starfighters and fast-moving gun frigates shredded engines and hulls. Dozens of vessels died to maintain the illusion of an orderly retreat. And all while the Rising fleet continued to hammer away at the remaining loyalist ships.

While her fiancé and her ex led the war on the military front, she led the charge herself on the sociopolitical front. With the Board of Quality Control dissolved, she and the Reformers had pushed through a piece of legislation that she had been telling Darrow about when he took her to Lykos before his Triumph so many weeks ago, albeit modified now that they were completely restructuring the government. It completely gutted the department of energy and redistributed power to redefine the way the meat shops her father called Helium mines were run. Dancer and the Sons of Ares were working closely with the lowRed mining clans to determine what to do regarding the migration of the miners.

Ragnar had reported that progress in freeing his people from the ice of Mars' south pole was slow going. With the aid of his sister Sefi, Ragnar had led an assault on the "gods" dwelling on Asgard Station. But convincing his people that the Golds were mortal was taking some time. Many Obsidian shamans and chieftains were aware of their people's true condition but were too pessimistic to believe that freedom from the ice was even possible. Ragnar had already been forced to kill his own mother when she tried to oppose him. Sefi had taken leadership of the Valkyrie tribe, and now that they had control of Asgard, the pace of the Obsidian liberation was beginning to pick up.

Things weren't doing too well on the diplomatic front with the Rim, however. The Joy Knight, Marcus au Saud, had been the brother of Dido au Raa, wife of the Ionian ArchGovernor Romulus au Raa. And Cassius had killed the man in the Sovereign's stateroom aboard the  _Invictus._ Romulus and Dido were famous throughout the solar system. If Shiro were here, he'd probably call them the modern celebrity couple. But even after her marriage into the Raa family, Dido au Saud was known for her vindictiveness. The only peace terms the dragons of House Raa would accept would be the Morning Knight's head on a gilded platter, and that was something the Rising could not and would not give them.

In the meantime, to distract herself from political concerns, she was headed down to the Citadel's prison wing. Other than her and Darrow's trap to kill Octavia, Virginia hadn't properly spoken with her brother since before the Triumph on Mars over a week ago. Shiro had told her about Adrius' confession, that her twin had orchestrated Claudius' death. At first, she didn't know how to react. What to think or say to that revelation. Now, though, she was ready to confront her only surviving family. She intended to abolish the death penalty once the Solar Republic had solidified itself, but she knew that for his role in Fitchner's death and the hunting of the Sons of Ares, the Rising would except nothing less than execution for her twin brother.

So now, she was headed downstairs to his cell for one last confrontation. It would be the last chance she had to get closure before Adrius was executed for his crimes. She followed the security guards as they led her into her brother's cell. Since Adrius was one of the few Gold prisoners dangerous enough to warrant a maximum-security cell, Virginia had to go through multiple screening checkpoints before she and her escorts were allowed within ten meters of the cell door. Visitors were not permitted in the cell if they were wearing loose clothing, jewelry, or anything in their hair. When the guards fed him, they made sure that Adrius' food was pre-cut to into chewable pieces, and all plates and cups were made of paper. A doctor was assigned to come in later today to trim his nails and shave him. The guards would have to restrain Adrius while the Yellow did his work.

With most of the Aureate loyalists being held in the Citadel, she would have considered such draconian security measures overkill. But she knew her brother, and she still questioned whether those security measures were enough. She didn't believe Adrius was the type to take his own life in prison, but she was well aware of his reputation as a prolific schemer. It wasn't out of the realm of possibility for him to have prepared contingency plans among the followers he'd accrued while building his media empire over the last three years, to be implemented in the event of his capture. When her brother looked at others, he didn't see people. Rather, he saw sacks of bone and meat. People didn't really exist to him. He was the monster they didn't know how to write stories about. But the Rising at least know how to take precautions and prevent him from doing further damage to the rebellion.

He looked up at her as she walked into his cell, the security officer's keeping him restrained while her bodyguards formed a line between him and Virginia. His chin was covered in a thin layer of stubble, and his hair was growing longer bit by bit. For a minute, the Augustan twins stared at each other in silence, the last surviving members of their family. Finally, Adrius cleared his mouth to speak.

"Hello, Virginia," he commented. "Nothing to say?"

"What is there to say?" Virginia retorted through gritted teeth. She'd come prepared with a speech, but now that she was seeing her brother in the flesh, the words she'd planned to say were caught in her throat. "What words have I for a monster?" Her twin didn't even flinch at the accusation, regarding her coldly as he thought through his response.

"It is us against the world," Adrius said softly. "Do you remember telling me that?"

"No," she replied, simultaneously confused at where her brother was going with this, and sad as she realized how differently things could have gone.

"We were young," he began. "Mother had just died. I couldn't stop crying. And you said you'd never leave me. But then Claudius would invite you somewhere. And you'd forget all about me. And I'd stay at home in a big old house and cry, because I knew even then I was alone." Virginia's heart was in her throat as she thought about how much of their father's abuse her brother had endured alone. While she had had Kavax and the Telemanuses to show her a better path, Adrius had had no one.

"You speak as if you were alone in your pain," she said. "Father was abusive to us both, he merely expressed it in different ways. I was a child, just like you. And I was so focused on my own survival that I never considered what Father was doing to you. You're right. I overlooked the fact that you needed someone to support you, the way the Telemanuses supported me. But that doesn't excuse the things that you've done, brother. You could have tried to be a better person in spite of everything you'd endured, and instead you chose to be as cruel as he was."

"And you chose to betray our Color and bed a slave," Adrius spat. "He'll chew you up and spit you out, you know. He can tell his little Red friends all he likes. He lost himself among us. He yearned to be Gold. I saw it in his eyes at the Institute, and when he rode that triumphal chariot up to the steps of the Agean Citadel. Your precious reaper is so hungry for power that he'll always be alone." Virginia's eyes narrowed, recognizing the underlying subtext of what Adrius was saying.

"You're wrong, brother," she snapped. "Darrow had a wife. A family he loved. He had just a little bit and he was happy. You had everything, and you were miserable. And you always will be because you covet." She paused as her brother's foundation of calm began to crumble.

"That's why you killed Father," she continued. "Why you killed Pax. But this isn't a game, brother. This isn't one of your mazes."

"Do not call me brother, whore," Adrius retorted. But Virginia could tell from the look in his eyes that she had gotten to him. "You are no sister of mine. Opening your legs for a mongrel. For a beast of burden. Are the Obsidians next? I bet they are queued up already. You are a disgrace to your Color and to your House.

"You think you never had love,  _brother_ ," she replied. "But mother loved you."

"If she loved me, why didn't she stay?" he asked sharply. "Why did she leave?"

"I don't know," Virginia answered, tears in her eyes. "But I loved you too, and you threw that away. You were my twin. We were bound for life. I defended you for years. Then I find out it was you who had Claudius killed." She paused as she blinked through the tears, shaking her head as she found her resolve. "I cannot forgive that. I cannot. You had love and you lost it, brother. That is your curse." With that, she had said everything that she felt needed to be said. There was nothing else that she could say that would elicit a response from her brother. So, without further ado, she turned and marched out of the cell, her bodyguards right behind her. She kept her head held high as she left the prison block behind and returned to her office. Only when the door was closed, and the office swept for bugs did she allow herself to cry. She wept knowing that her

Once she had finished her grieving, she wiped her face and sat down at her desk. She brought up her coms to find an incoming message from Roque. She quickly transferred the message to her datapad and hit play.

 _"Virginia,"_ the Poet of Deimos began.  _"Shiro, Keith, and Tactus returned from the Kuiper Belt. And they've brought guests. It appears that Princess Allura of Altea is still alive after all these centuries and has come offering the aid of the Voltron Coalition to our rebellion. They've just landed at the Citadel, and I want to make sure you know they're here before we send them up to your office. Please respond when you get this. Fabii out."_

She checked the time stamp on the message. Ten minutes ago. They hadn't been waiting long. She typed up a brief message and sent it off to Roque. Then she called the Citadel's head of security and instructed him to prepare one of the complex's conference rooms to host diplomatic negotiations.


	31. Sister Planet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, everyone. As promised, here's the new chapter. Dialogue and descriptions for this chapter were quoted almost entirely from Iron Gold, although I've reworked events since the assault on Venus is happening a whole decade early in this fic. I reworked the Ash Lord's tower from Iron Gold into being part of the estate of Haus Saud since we only get so much of Venusian history in Iron Gold. I figured there was enough wiggle room to work, so here we are.

#### Venus

#### March 31st, 2841

Nearly eight hundred years ago, Venus was viewed as the evil sister of Earth, swollen from solar dust to a similar shape and size. But while Earth was blessed with water, sweet air, and a temperate disposition, Venus had a more quarrelsome spirit. Her surface, cruel enough to melt lead, was marked by interminable days and nights, each numbering 243 of her sister’s. Under her foul breath, nothing could live, nothing could grow, and nothing could move but winds of carbon dioxide and torpid clouds fat with acid rain.

But then humankind came from the blackness, drank up the hydrogen of the gas giants and breathed the fresh breath into her skies. The ensuing rains fell to cover eighty percent of Venus’ surface in oceans. With high-altitude mass drivers, humans scalped away at the withering atmosphere and cooled the planet’s surface. With asteroids hurled from the asteroid belt and mass drivers at her equator, Venus was spun out of her torpor and into a more agreeable dance, her days now like Earth’s. Humanity dressed Venus in green and blue, and she waited, eager and fresh, for the humans to come down from their floating cities to join her in her new dance, four and a half billion years plus ninety in the making…

None of this was on Darrow's mind as he soured with the Howlers into the wake of a nuclear blast, skinned in mechanized armor, smeared with char and blood, aimed like a driven spear toward the tower from which the loyalist command led their defense of Venus. A kill squad of armored Golds and Gray Legionnaires raced to meet them. There were more than twenty in total, each a sworn Peerless commander of _Legio XIII Dracones_. Fire and mini-missiles streaked between the war parties. Shields flashed, and armor buckled as life was ripped from men. Thraxa fired an EMP missile at the enemy formation. It detonated, dropping them all from the sky.

After the fall of Endymion and Imbirum, it took another three days for the Rising to secure total control of Luna. With the Voltron Coalition and the acquisition of the _Classis Plutus_ , the rebels were able to rapidly move troops to and from Mars around the Ash Lord’s fleet. So while the Telemanuses lead a second Conquering of Earth, Altean technicians had spent the last three days modifying the rebel ships to travel across the solar system as speeds approximate to those of the 11th Fleet or Coalition ships. Now the Rising flew across the surface of the Second Planet’s oceans, conquering loyalist strongholds as they went.  

Victra had dispatched a legion of Rebel forces – a mix of veterans from the Martian uprising and local recruits, just like on Luna – to launch an assault on the personal fortress of House Saud, the ruling family of Venus. Darrow disliked the idea of sacrificing the lives of loyal rebel soldiers, but the invasion force had been selected entirely by volunteer, men and women of all colors stepping forward to partake in a suicidal massed assault designed to eat up the attention of the Saud family’s forces. Which meant that everyone on that mission knew they would be racking up the bulk of the casualties and signed on anyway. While the larger rebel force kept ArchGovernor Saud’s men distracted, Darrow’s force would come in the back door aboard a stealth ship and rip straight for the ArchGovernor’s personal tower.

A Howler’s body was blown to bits in front of Darrow. Two loyalist Grays died as Sevro’s particle cannon sliced through their ranks. In the last two weeks, Society propaganda on Mercury and Venus had demonized the Rising to such an extent that the Sons of Ares were expecting little, if any, sympathy towards the Rising from local mid- and lowColors. Victra was reporting civilians were largely staying out of the fight, with a few zealots rushing out to aid the loyalists. Meanwhile, Darrow flew in Thraxa’s shadow, the eldest Telemanus daughter acting as his vanguard. He raised his razor ahead of him like a charging knight, the blade straight and true.

Then, just shy of the speed of sound, the two war parties of machine and men met in the sky, claining together like squadrons of fallen angels. It was a horror of metal, a scream of guns and fire and shimmering swords and engines. Milia speared a gold through his head with her razor, then took a glancing blow from a passing sword. The Reaper deflected her attacker’s blade from Thraxa’s head as the man ripped past them. The force numbed Darrow’s arm at the socket, but he held onto his blade and plunged into the enemy’s ranks. He launched off Thraxa’s flank and gored the chest of a Gold as they slammed together. He twisted himself at the last second, so his opponent’s blade nicked off his helmet. His vision wavered as he and his enemy tumbled.

They slammed down on an outcropping of rock beneath them, metal limbs tangled together. Darrow’s helm inches from the Gold’s. The man pushed his pulseFist towards the rebel leader’s head. Darrow let go of his razor and used a kravat arm holt, pulling the man’s arm to the side as the Reaper brought his own pulseFist to the enemy’s belly and fired on full auto. The man’s body melted in half and superheated stone kicked up from the mountain cleft to skitter against Darrow’s visor. He pushed his foe’s smoldering corpse off and struggled to his feet as the man’s legs flopped off the ledge to the white rocks below.

But before he could rise again into the air, a pulseRifle round slammed into his back. Thankfully, the starShell protected him from the worst of the blow, even as the pulseShield in the armor flickered. He bellowed in anger and jumped off the ledge, swerving madly in the air to avoid his pursuer. Darrow glanced back just as Sevro smashed the Golden knight down into the mountainside with his own starShell. Using the mech’s incredible power, the new Ares peeled off the man’s arms and stomped his armored head flat. Another Gold ripped past, strafing Sevro with his pulseFist. Sevro lurched one of his armor’s mechanized hands up and grabbed the Gold’s foot. He jerked the leg so hard in the other direction that the opposing forces tore the man’s leg off at the hip. The man spun off and collided with the mountainside at two hundred kilometers per hour.

“Get inside the tower!” Sevro shouted as he fired up at the dogfight above him. “There has to be a door to the landing pad!” The battle had broken down into aerial dogfights and men killing each other on the face of the mountainside and against the walls of the tower. Thraxa’s mech fended off six Golds in an aerial cage. Men broken by her power hammer littered the mountainside below. She smashed another out of the air, but she’s speared from behind. A swarm of rebel ripWings shreds her attackers before she can suffer any further injuries. Below, Pebble and Clown lead the new Howler recruits in pinning a squad of Loyalist Golds in a ravine.

“Rally to the roof!” Darrow called out over the coms, Sevro echoing his order. The remaining rebels fight their way to the roof to join him as he and Sevro flew up the mountain towards the high tower. At the top, a landing pad sixty meters in diameter was being used as a staging area by a Gray sniper team and Obsidian reinforcements. They attempted to retreat as the rebel force landed, seeking shelter behind the long wings of ArchGovernor Saud’s personal shuttle.

The Reaper and Ares landed on the edge together and fought back a squad of Obsidians and Grays. Darrow rocketed into them at full speed, breaking the ribcage of a Gray against the concrete. Rolling up, he deflected the huge axe of an Obsidian and shot him in the head. The man’s helmet took the blast, but Darrow stunned him enough to hew the Stained’s laegs with his razor. An enemy pulseFist caught Darrow in the side before he could finish his foe, but his shield absorbed it. He shot up on his gravBoots, then came straight back down in front of the new target to exchange a series of razor slashes that ended with the Gold’s arm cut off at the shoulder. Someone shot the Aureate in the side. Sevro kicked a Gray off the roof with the boot of his mech. An Obsidian launched toward him and stabbed a pulseSpear into his cockpit. Sevro moved his head at the last moment, then pulled the Obsidian off. Blood showered his mech as he crushed the Stained’s head with a squeeze of his mechanized hand.

Green plasma rounds pound the legs of his mech, melting them to the point of being inoperable. A squad of hunched Grays fired at Sevro from the landing pad with huge anti-armor plasma rifles. Darrow fired at them, cutting a hole of steaming meat through their ranks. But it was too late. An EMP rocked slammed into the chest of Sevro’s meck. Blue electricity sizzled out, frying the starShell’s circuitry. He ejected manually, shooting straight up and over the heads of Screwface and Wulfgar, who fought like mad together against the Tide. Sevro was soon lost from sight in the fray.

The enemy pressed in, firing at the invading rebels from the air above, chewing into their ranks. A concussion munition slammed Darrow sideways. As he tried to regain his balance, an Obsidian a head taller than him hit him in the chest with a pulseHammer. The shields in his armor shorted out as the pulseArmor caved inward. He tumbled back as he felt several ribs crack. The Obsidian knocked him to the ground before he could lift his head. The behemoth was about to stomp on his hand when a pulseRifle shot from a Gray defector took the man’s head clean off. Darrow nodded his head and raised his blade in salute of the man who’d had the courage to betray his unit and help the rebels.

The clarion call of a trumpted rode in with the wind. Darrow looked up to see a flight of armored knights falling from the sky, a violent figure in jade armor at their head. The jade figure landed in a crowd of Loyalist forces and cut three Golds in half with running upward blows before the tower’s defenders knew what hit them. Victra had arrived.

Her reinforcements fell upon the Venusian Dragoons, carving them with razors and ionBlades, smashing them off the face of the face of the landing pad until but those who’d defected to the Rising remained alive. The Gray who’d saved Darrow’s life helped him to his feet. Victra’s forces – a mix of Gold Reformers and rebel lowColors – jump off the tower back towards the battle, which rages inland of House Saud’s beached below. Victra walked towards the Reaper and extended her arms, pulling Darrow into a hug.

“Loyalist forces have been completely routed everywhere but here,” she reported as she pulled back. “Despite our apparent teleportation from Mars to Luna, it looks like the Saud still believed we wouldn’t be able to hit Venus this quickly. We took half the planet before the Pixies could even organize a decent counterattack. I doubt we’ll be so fortunate on Mercury.” Sevro limped towards them, and Darrow could see charred flesh through fissures in his friend’s armor. Thraxa sat popped against a retaining wall as Wulfgar administered first aid. Few rebel soldiers were uninjured in this battle.

“Clown,” Darrow called out. “Pebble.”

“Yes, boss?” the two asked as they approached with their squad.

“Call the fleet and hold the roof,” Darrow ordered as he turned to limp toward the security door leading down from the landing pad into the tower. “Sevro, Victra, with me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, the Rising is taking control of the Core. We're going to be avoiding the whole situation in Iron Gold. Next weekend we'll be going back to Shiro and Keith on the Rim before we get some more Mustang and Darrow chapters. I can promise that the next chapter will address Sevro's reaction to his mom still being alive.


	32. Here Again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Most of the descriptions of Io and the Moon Lords are quoted from Morning Star.

####  _Samuel Holt Interplanetary Spaceport_

#### Kerberos

#### March 31 st, 2841

Despite the trauma that had come after his first trip, Shiro felt nostalgic as he found himself leaving Kerberos for the third time in what, to him, was a little over a year and a half. When they had stowed away aboard the 11th Fleet supply ships, he hadn’t had the chance to stop and look at how much the moon had changed since he’d been there last. What was once a barren, lifeless hunk of frozen rock at the outer edge of the solar system was now a bustling port. And with the coalition now making contact, the moon was poised to become a major gateway between the solar system and the universe at large.

Negotiations between the Solar Republic and the Voltron Coalition were still in progress, but things had been going well so far. After six days of negotiations, the two factions were starting to hash out the beginnings of an official treaty. In the early days of the negotiations, Shiro and Keith had served as liaisons between the Coalition and the nascent republic. Once things had settled down enough that the senate was willing to trust that the Coalition was on their side, Shiro and Keith had returned to the Kuiper belt to bring the _Classis Plutus_ to bear on the rest of the war.

Under the leadership of Allura’s second-in-command, Romelle, Coalition mechanics had begun rendezvousing with Rising-aligned warships and working to upgrade their engines with the same mix of Altean and Galra technology that had been put in use in the construction of the 11th Fleet. Depending on the size of each ship, the work took anywhere between several hours and a few days. The slight delay had been worth it, however, as he observed tactical reports in his demonHelm’s HUD display showing the Norvo fleet reaching Triton in a fraction of the time it would have taken to reach Neptune’s orbit from Jupiter’s.

The war effort on the Rim had been progressing well in his absence. Under the leadership of Sevro’s aunt, ten of Neptune’s fourteen moons were now under the Rising’s control. House Norvo’s ships were decimating the Loyalist defenses on the remaining four, freeing up the warships captured from enemy Golds to advance inward to the moons of Uranus and Saturn. Romelle’s mechanic teams were modifying those ships at that very moment, working to drastically shrink the fleet’s travel time toward the inner Gas Giants. To compensate for the reduced travel time, Tactus had spent the last week taking small squadrons of the _Classis Plutus_ on guerilla missions to strike at key targets throughout the solar system, and to ferry Coalition allies to rebel ships.

With humanity’s outer defense fleet reduced in size for the time being, Romelle and the Coalition fleet had taken up the slack. While none of the enemies any of them were familiar with were still around, the two Paladins had looked over the _Shirogane_ ’s log and seen the reports of attempted incursions by alien ships that had been repelled or destroyed by the 11th Fleet Garrison. While the alliance between the Coalition and the Rising would open the door for humankind to join the intergalactic community, there would also always be forces in the universe that wished to do them harm. The Galra Empire might be gone by this point in time, but he wasn’t naïve enough to believe that new threats wouldn’t eventually rise in its place.

There hadn’t been a need for him to land on Kerberos before catching a shuttle up to the 11th Fleet ships in orbit. It had mainly been nostalgia on his part. Going to Kerberos had been his dream for so long. To stand at the edge of the solar system. Travel farther than any human had ever come before. But then the empire had arrived and swept it all away. He’d travelled beyond Earth’s solar system, and the price had been a year of horror and experiments. The Arena. Haggar’s lab. Sometimes he wondered if the nightmares were worth the cost. But then he reminded himself of all the good he’d been able to do since then. Both as a Paladin of Voltron and as a leader for the Rising. If he hadn’t gone to Kerberos, Earth would have been conquered by the Galra long before the rise of the Color Hierarhcy. If he hadn’t been thrown forward into the future, Quinn, Tactus, and so many others would be dead.

After their return from Luna, Shiro and Keith had spent a few hours on the surface of Kerberos before they received a transmission from Romulus au Raa, the ArchGovernor of Io. The children of the Moon Lords kept in the Sovereign’s court on Luna as hostages had been returned to them, alongside the children he and the others had rescued from the massacre at the Triumph two weeks ago. Each had brought to their families a request from the Rising to negotiate with the Solar Republic. The hope was that their gratitude for the rescue of their loved ones might sway at least some of the major Golden houses of the gas giants to join the Reformer cause and throw their lot in with the Rising.

Unfortunately, those negotiations were not faring so well. Even with the rescue of their families from the Jackal’s massacre on Mars, most of the Moon Lords were indifferent to the cause of the Rising. Their primary concern was their renewed attempt at independence from the Core. The Jovian Golds were a cold, proud, insular people. Roughly eight thousand Peerless Scarred called the Jupiter’s Galilean Moons their home. Their Institutes were all out here. It was only politics, Society service, or vacations for the wealthiest among them that took them to the Core. Earth and Luna might be the ancestral home of their people, but it was alien to most of them. Metropolitan Ganymede was the center of their world.

Octavia had known the danger of having a Rim independent from the Core. When Darrow had met her at the Summit back on Luna, she had spoken to him of the difficulty of imposing her power across a billion kilometers of empire. Her truefear had never been Augustus and Bellona destroying one another, but rather the chance that the Rim would rebel and cut the Society in half. Sixty years ago, at the beginning of her reign, she had ordered the Ash Lord to destroy Saturn’s moon, Rhea, when its ruler refused to accept her authority. That example had held for the last six decades. But now, with Octavia dead and the solar system in chaos, the Moon Lords were growing restless. Several were rallying around Romulus au Raa as a leader of the Rim and urging him to declare war on the Core forces stationed beyond the asteroid belt.  

An hour later, Shiro, Keith, Tactus, and Wulfgar stood on the surface of Io, the famed Yellow Sea rolling in around their boots. Great dunes of sulfur-laced sand with razorback ridges of silicate rock stretched as far as the eye could see. The marbled surface of Jupiter undulated in the steel blue sky. At one hundred and thirty times the diameter that Luna appeared from the surface of Earth, Jupiter seemed like the vast and evil head of a marble god in comparison. But Shiro wasn’t here for sightseeing. War gripped the planet’s sixty-seven moons. Cities hunkered under pulseShields and the blackened husks of men in starShells littered moons while fighter squardons dueled and hunted troop and supply transports among the gas giant’s faint ice rings.

After the surviving members of the Arcos family conquered Europa, nine moons fell to the Rising. Spurred to action by Darrow’s speeches and Sons of Ares broadcasts, dock workers on Ganymede had stolen hundreds of ships, including the new moonBreaker that the late ArchGovernor Augustus had attempted to steal three months ago. The Obsidians who lead the hijacking had christened the ship _Morning Star_.

Io was a strange moon. Innermost and smallest of the four Galilean moons, she was a belt-notch larger than Luna. It had never been Io’s destiny to be fully terraformed by the Golds’ machins. As the driest object in the solar system, rife with explosive volcanism, sulfur deposts, and interior tidal heating, it was a hell Dante would’ve been proud of. The moon’s surface was a canvas of yellow and orange plains broken by huge thrust faults from the shifting surface, dramatic sheer cliffs rising from the surlfur dunes to scrape the sky.

Huge stains of concentric green freckled the equatorial regions. Having found crops and animals difficult to cultivate so far from the sun, the Society Engineering Corp covered millions of acres of Io’s surface with pulseFields, imported dirt and water for three lifetimes on cosmosHaulters, thickened the planet’s atmosphere to filter Jupiter’s massive radiation, and used the planet’s interior tidal heating to power the generators needed to grow foodstuffs for the entire Jupiter orbit, as well as for exportation to the Core and, more importantly, the Rim. Io was a farm deck with the biggest breadbasket between Mars and Uranus with easy gravity and cheap land.

No surprise that the slaves did all the labor.

Beyond the pulseFields lay the sulfur sea, stretching from pole to pole with only volcanoes and magma lacks to interrupt it. Shiro was just glad that he wasn’t wearing black today. Outside the protection of the pulseFields, the temperature was 120 degrees Celsius. Instead of his black and gold Augustan armor, or his Voltron-colored pulseArmor, he and Keith wore all-white suits of Altean make that Romelle had provided for them when she heard about the conditions on Io’s surface. They were much more lightweight than the bulky armor Shiro had been wearing in battle for the last few months, and just as durable. Tactus and Romelle had spent the week that Allura and the two Paladins were on Luna testing the efficacy of Society weapons against the types of armor worn by the Voltron Coalition, and were satisfied with the results.

Three warships emerged from the heat mirage on the horizon. Two black _sarpedon_ -class fighters painted with the four-headed white dragon of House Araa escort a fan tan _priam_ -class shuttle. The ship landed before the rebels, dust swirling as the ramp unfurled from the craft’s belly. Seven lithe forms walked down into the sand, each taller and lankier than even the Reaper. All of them were Golds, wearing Carver-made organic breathing masks called krill over their noses and mouths. The masks looked like the shed skin of locusts, with the legs stretching from either ear. Their tan colored combat gear was evidently lighter than standard pulsArmor and complimented with brightly colored scarves.

Long-barrled railguns with personalized ivory stocks were strapped to each Gold’s back. Razors hung from their hps and orange optics covered their eyes. On their feet were skippers, lightweight boots that used condensed air to move their user instead of gravity, skipping the wearer over the ground like stones across a lake. From what Shiro had read, you couldn’t get much high in them, but you could move nearly sixty kilometers an hour. They were a quarter the weight of a standard pair of gravBoots, have enough battery life for a year, and were dead cold on thermal visions. These were assassins, not knights. Shiro narrowed his eyes at the different breed of danger.

A tall woman stared down her smashed-flat nose at the party. Her skin was pale, her body adapted for the low gravity. It was hard to see her face past the mask and goggles, but she seemed to be in her early fifteens. He voice was one even note.

“I am Legate Vela au Raa,” she announced. “I send my brother’s greetings and welcome, Takashi Shirogane of Earth.”

“Well met, _legatus_ ,” Shiro nodded cordially. There were few Reformers among the Moon Lords, but if he was going to convince the Raa to put aside the Hierarchy and support the Republic, he need to speak their language. “Will you be speaking for your brother? I’d hoped to negotiate with him in person.” The skin to the side of Vela’s goggles crinkled.

“No one speaks for my brother,” she answered. “Not even I. He wishes for you to join him at his private home on the Wastes of Karrack.”

“How do we know this isn’t a trap?” Keith demanded.

“If you wish to present yourself to Moon Lords as a diplomatic party, then you must show respect for my brother. And trust the honor of his hospitality.”

“I’ve seen plenty of men and women set aside honor when it’s convenient,” Shiro commented probingly.

“In the Core, perhaps,” Vela replied. “This is the Rim. We remember the ancestors. We remember how Iron Golds should be. We do not murder guests like that bitch Octavia, or like that Jackal from Mars.”

“Yet,” Keith interjected.

“It is a choice you must make,” the Legate commented with a shrug. “You have sixty seconds to decide.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And with that, we are now halfway through Omnis Vir Lupus. 
> 
> And yes, the spaceport named for Pidge's dad is another subtle nugget of the VLD cast having an impact on the history of the solar system in ways they didn't expect.


	33. The Moon Lord

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay everyone. The last few weeks have been crazy busy for me and I hit a patch of writers block to boot. I'm over the writers' block, but now that I'm back in school I won't be able to post as often as I used to. My goal is to try and get one chapter out every 2 weeks from this point forward.

#### Nessus

#### Io

#### March 31st, 2841

The home of the most powerful man in the Galilean Moons was a simple, wandering place of little gardens and quiet nook. Sitting in the shadow of a dormant volcano, it looked out over a yellow plain that stretched to the horizon where another volcano smoldered as magma crept westward. Vela au Raa's ship set down in a small covered hangar in the side of a rock formation, the cavernous room empty except for a row of several dust-covered hover bikes. If Keith looked closely enough, he could have seen the resemblance to the old Galaxy Garrison model. It wasn't the same, but clearly a much later evolution of the design. No one came to service the vessel as Shiro, Keith, and Vella disembarked and approached the home along a white stone walkway set into the sulfur chalk. The path curved to the side of the family estate, the entirety of the property enclosed by a discreet pulseBubble.

Romulus au Raa sat at a stone table in an orchard along the side of the house, finishing a dessert of elderberry cheesecake and coffee. Smoke from a brooding dwarf volcano twirled up into the twilight horizon with the same indolence as the steam from the porcelain saucer in front of him. The ArchGovernor of Io was a serene and violent man, about the same height as the Reaper, yet thinner, and with a twice broken nose. His right eye larger than either Paladin's and set in a narrow, wrathful face. His left eyelid was crossed with a scar, a smooth globe of blue and black marble stared out at them in place of an eyeball. His full lips were pinched, the top bearing three additional scars. His dark gold hair was long enough to be held in a pony tail. Except for old wounds, his skin was perfect porcelain. But it was how he seemed more than how he looked that made the man so formidable. Even from a distance, Keith could feel his steady way and easy confidence, as if he'd always been at the door. Always known them. It was startling to Keith how the man exuded the kind of presence that made you like him, and made you want him to like you, despite knowing he was a tyrant.

"Takashi Shirogane and Keith Kogane of Earth, welcome to my home," the man greeted solemnly, his voice clipped with the staccato delivery of a man raised in gladiatorial academies. There no affectations here, like Keith had seen from Loyalist families who surrendered in the Core. It was refreshing, if off-putting, to have such direct conversation without purring insults or games. "Please," Romulus said, gesturing to the food arrayed across the table. "Help yourself. The benefit of owning a breadbasket is that siege is never a hungry affair." Shiro and Keith took their seats, but politely declined the food. Romulus sat at the head of the table, two chairs occupied on either side of him. On his right was the ArchGovernor of Titan, while an old woman wearing the wings of an Imperator whom Keith wasn't familiar with from the briefings sat in the chair to the left. Other seats were occupied by holograms of every ArchGovernor on the Rim not currently aligned with the Rising.

"Now that we are all here," Romulus began. "I shall say my piece and let you say yours. You are not of this era, yet you come as emissaries of my enemies. The Rising has plagued me with work's strikes, anti-government propaganda, and insurrection. here on the fringe of the darkness away from your source of power, you need me, and my ships, and my legions. You see the irony. My lone question is this. Why should I ally myself with you, instead of rallying the remnants of the Society to crush your rebellion?"

"Honored Lords," Shiro began. "You have all seen the historical records and the old newscasts, so you know I am who I say I am. I will not bore you with the details of how my friend and I found ourselves in this era, but you should not find it surprising that my sympathies lie with the Rising. Since I arrived in this era, I have seen a world build on cruelty and oppression. An empire for the few built on the backs of the many. The ruling families may dress it up in noble words of sacrifice and duty, but the Hierarchy of Color is simply slavery by another name."

"But I know that such appeals will not faze you," Shiro went on. "So I will lay out the facts. When the Jackal massacred everyone at Darrow's Triumph on Mars three weeks ago, your daughter Thesalia would have perished at the hand of a sociopathic matricide: Antonia au Sevrus-Julii. It is only because of myself and Antonia's elder sister Victra that your daughter lived to return home. Our conquest of Luna has freed all the children of the Moon Lords held as political hostages in Octavia's court to return to their families unharmed. And if the safe return of your loved ones is not an incentive enough, I must ask if you were aware that the Sovereign kept a nuclear weapons depot in the Asteroid belt?"

Several ArchGovernors stare at the Black Paladin in shock. Before anyone can react, Shiro turned to Keith an nodded. In response, the half-Galra Paladin pulled up his datapad and an image of Asteroid S-1988 blossomed in the air, rotating slowly over the table. Footage of their raid on the facility a week ago plays beneath it, the Geiger meters synced to their helms crackling in the video at the amount of radiation in the place. The video plays through all the way until they confirm the facility's destruction.

"The Sovereign has long considered annihilation to be an option against the people of the Rim if you ever rose against her. She kept a base near the edge of the asteroid belt on the path a fleet from Luna would use when Jupiter is in closest orbit to the sun. A chace meant to be acquired by an Imperator on the way to your home. Or should I say, and  _Arch_ Imperator. But now that can never happen. We destroyed that facility a week ago, robbing the Ash Lord of his greatest weapon. We have defanged your greatest enemy, and we hope that gratitude will persuade you to join us."

"As of today, Venus is now part of the Solar Republic. The Reaper leads the Rising against the Loyalist holdouts on Mercury. At the rate this war has been going, we will have full control over the Core within the week. In return for the aid of your legions and armadas in destroying the Ash Lord's loyalists, Sovereign Augustus will enter talks in good faith regarding the reduction of taxes and Rim export tariffs. She will grant you the same licenses for Belt mining which Core companies currently hold. Already, she is building the framework for each planet and moon to have equal representation in the Senate.

"The age of the Hierarchy is coming to an end, one way or another. If you stand against the tide of history, you will be crushed under the weight of seven centuries of righteous anger. But if you swear fealty to the Solar Republic now and help us thwart the remaining loyalists to House Lune, you will be able to keep your positions of privilege. So, you must ask yourself one question. Would you rather ally yourselves with a legend right out of the history books, or the monster who burned Rhea and left her a glassy corpse in your sky?"

"Such a disappointment," the ArchGovernor of Titan snorted contemptuously. "I expected more from the father of Akari Shirogane, progenitor of the great bloodline of House Raa."

Shiro froze, like a record that had scratched on the inside of his head, eyes widening as the implications of what the man had said hit him like a freight train. Keith knew Shiro well enough to know what his friend was thinking. They had thought the flagship of the 11th Fleet Garrison had been the last extent of his impact on the history of humanity. But Shiro's son… his  _son…_ Quiznak! Shiro wasn't even ready to have kids yet, and he just found out his son was destined to become Akari au Raa, one of the original conquerors to lead the original Iron Rain on Earth and lay the foundations for this oppressive empire… Keith didn't think Shiro even know what to think of the revelation that he was distantly related to Romulus. That Thesalia was his great-however-many-hundred-times-great granddaughter.

The Black Paladin snapped him out of his thoughts when Keith gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze. He knew what his friend was feeling right now. Mustang had done DNA analysis on Shiro to try and identify him months ago, but there'd been no match to the Raa family. Were the records sealed? Or was it just that after eight centuries the percentage of DNA was too small to flag a match? In any case, now wasn't the time to dive down the rabbit hole. Shiro would have plenty of time to think those things through when politics and negotiations with the Rim weren't on the line.

Romulus apologized for the ArchGovernor of Titan's remarks, and politely asked that the two Paladins wait in the courtyard while the lords of Jupiter's moons deliberated their decision. Privately, Keith thought that the decision had already been made, and that the appearance of thinking it over was for appearance's sake only. But just like that, the two Paladins were left alone in the garden with the song of a wind chime hanging from a tree above. The garden courtyard was an even rectangle, about thirty paces wide, and ten deep from the front gate to the small white steps leading into the estate's front entrance. The white plaster walls of the courtyard were smooth but covered with thin creeping vines that wandered into the house. Little orange flowers erupting from the vines filled the air with a woodsy, burning scent. Even if it seemed like a strange amount of effort to expend, the Red Paladin found it oddly comforting.

Now that they had time to look around, Keith could get a proper glimpse of the Raa family estate. From what they could see from the courtyard, the house rambled. Rooms and gardens unfolded out from each other. There was no roof, but there was little reason for one. The pulseBubble sealed off the property from the weather outside. The Raa family made their own rain here. Little misters dripped with water from the small citrus trees whose roots cracked the bottom of the white stone fountain in the center of the garden. It was saddening to Keith to realize that a tiny glimpse at a place like this had been what had led Darrow's wife to the gallows. What had started the chain of dominoes that had led to the situation they were in now.

Keith looked at Shiro, and he knew that finding out he'd have a kid who helped start this whole hieararchy bullshit was eating at the older Paladin. But they both knew that this wasn't the time or place to have that conversation. Not when they were in enemy territory and it was clear from the snub that there would be no alliance. But before they could do or say anything, they were unexpectedly interrupted.

"You can eat a tangerine if you like," a small voice said behind them. "Father won't mind." Keith and Shiro turned to find a child standing by another gate that led off from the main courtyard to a path that winded around the left side of the house. She looked maybe seven years old, holding a small shovel in her hands, and the knees on her pants stained with dirt. Her golden hair was short-cropped and messy, her face pale, and eyes larger than a human born closer to the sun. Keith could see the tender length of her bones, like those of a newborn colt. There was a wildness to her, and Keith found himself curious. Shiro couldn't tell him about what Gold children were like because the Black Paladin hadn't met many. Core Peerless families guarded them from the public eye for fear of assassination, keeping their kids hidden away in private schools and personal estates. According to Tridenti au Norvo, the Rim is different. They don't kill children here. But everyone likes to pretend they don't kill children.

"Hi," Keith said awkwardly. He felt so alien in this place, this time for reasons other than his Galra heritage. He was always saying or doing the wrong thing in social situations to begin with. Seeing Shiro effortlessly rub elbows with all these high society elitists made him squirm. But the girl didn't give them time to think before she started peppering them with more questions.

"You're the time travelers, aren't you?" she asked, sounding impressed. Keith and Shiro spared a glance at each other. While they weren't going out of their way to advertise time travel, they had both started introducing themselves using their real names, so it didn't take a genius to put two and two together. They were merely surprised that a seven-year-old had apparently accessed the historical records. This didn't seem like the kind of thing Gold parents would share with their children.

"I am Sera au Raa," she said proudly. "How did you travel through time? I heard my father speaking," she explained. "They think just because I don't have this" – she ran a finger along her cheek in an imaginary imitation of a Peerless Scar – "That I don't have ears." She paused and nodded up to the vine-covered walls and smiled mischievously. "Sometimes I climb."

"It's a bit of a long story," Keith said.

"Do you think you might have time to tell me after you've finished your meeting with my father?" she asked. "Thesalia has been telling me about how you saved her from Antonia au Severus-Julii at the Triumph for days."

"That'll depend on how long your father's hospitality lasts," Shiro replied.

"What was it like to live back in those times?" Sera asked. "

"There are some things that have improved since then," Shiro commented. "Technology, food, the colonization of the solar system…"

"What about the things that aren't better?" she asked timidly. As her voice trembled, Keith realized what a big deal their being here was for her. She was only eight years old and her entire education was built on the belief that the "benevolent" slavery of the Hierarchy was what had saved humanity from extinction on a chaotic, war-torn Earth. Meeting two people who had lived before that time was likely throwing her entire worldview into question.

"The Hierarchy is wrong," Keith replied, trying to keep his tone gentle so that the girl would understand. "People like your father can dress it up in pretty words about sacrifice and nobility, but those words don't mean anything because the people expected to make those sacrifices only do so because there is no other option, and they'll be killed if they don't."

"Seraphina," another voice called out. "Uncle was looking for you." Keith and Shiro turned to see two boys running barefoot into the garden, one sixteen, the other a year or two younger. They both stopped

"Hey there,"

"Diomedes, Aeneas," Seraphina hissed. "They really are time travelers."

"We already knew  _that_ ," the younger of the two retorted. "But is the other part true? Is he really the father of Akari?"

"Apparently so," Shiro commented with a slightly morbid chuckle. "Since Keith and I haven't made it back to our own time yet, it feels weird talking about the son I haven't had yet after he's been dead for centuries. But I guess it's still enough to make us related. You can call me Shiro."

"I'm Aeneus," the sixteen-year-old replied. "This is Diomedes. It's… well calling it an honor to meet one of my ancestors in the flesh would be an understatement, wouldn't it?" Shiro laughed and asked if there was anything the boys wanted to ask him about life before the Hierarchy. Despite their frustration with ArchGovernor Raa, Shiro was doing his best to be nice to the kids. Keith smiled knowingly as Sera, Aeneas, and Diomedes started asking to hear stories about Shiro's time as a pilot at the Garrison. Somethings never changed. He just hoped that the kids wouldn't have any hard feelings towards them when the Rising declared war on their father.


	34. Bear Witness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay between chapters!  
> I just ended up losing a lot of my motivation to write between the stress of school and all the speculation surrounding Season 8, but now I'm getting over my writer's block and getting back to work. 
> 
> (Speaking of Season 8, if you're disappointed, there's evidence mounting up [that the season the production crew made was not the one we got, having been cut up and rearranged by the Dreamworks execs before release.](https://web.archive.org/web/20181219234130/https://freevlds8.tumblr.com/post/181249037547/was-season-8-of-voltron-changed) [A petition](https://web.archive.org/web/20181219234130/https://freevlds8.tumblr.com/post/181249037547/was-season-8-of-voltron-changed) has been going around for Dreamworks to release the unedited version, and it's at over 20,000 signatures as of December 23rd. Fan campaigns have worked before, so I figure we've got nothing to lose by trying.)
> 
> In the meantime, please enjoy the next chapter of Omnis Vir Lupus. I promise to not make you all wait so long for the next chapter.

#### Nessus

#### Io

#### March 31st, 2841

As expected, Romulus au Raa would not be pledging his support to the Rising.

Not that Shiro and Keith were surprised. The Ionian ArchGovernor’s decision had already been made before the time travelers even set foot on his moon. Kicking them out of the conference room for “deliberations” was just a stalling tactic to maintain the illusion that he was giving them fair consideration. It wasn’t like Shiro was exactly disappointed. He and the other leaders of the Rising had known going into this that appealing to the man for an alliance was a gamble. But knowing that House Raa were his descendants made the coming battle harder to swallow.

Their negotiations concluded, a contingent of Peerless knights escorted them through the open-air halls of the Raa estate towards the exit. The number of troops would have seemed overkill, but Shiro couldn’t help but suspect that Romulus knew more about his ancestor’s time as The Champion than he let on. It wasn’t out of the possibility that his son had passed down the knowledge of Voltron and their war with the Galra Empire down to future generations as had been the case with Fitchner and Lorn.

_My son… Quiznak that’s going to take some getting used to,_ he thought to himself. It was easier to wrap his head around the possibility of Team Voltron’s descendants running around the solar system when it wasn’t his own.  

Fortunately, his closest friend leaned in to distract his mind from burrowing down that particular rabbit hole.

“I’m sorry things didn’t work out,” Keith whispered as they made their way along the dirt floor of the Raa estate to the landing pad, where Legate Vela au Raa would return them to their ship. From there, they would rendezvous with the armada assembling in Jupiter’s orbit and hold a holo-conference with the rest of the rebellion. Once their conference was complete, Shiro would take command of their forces and lead the _Classis Plutus_ and the fleets of Norvo and Arcos in a full-scale invasion of Jupiter’s moons.

Shiro’s heart was in turmoil as he and Keith were led toward the exit. Thought he had been hoping to resolve the situation peacefully, the part of him that had survived the horrors of the Galra Empire’s arena and Haggar’s experiments looked forward to the battle to come. But now that he knew he would be facing his own however-many-times-great-grandchildren in a few hours, he was conflicted.

It wasn’t like they had any kind of connection beyond the biological. The time traveler and the Golds were strangers to each other. But Shiro couldn’t help but feel that it was a personal failure of his for not being able to reach them and lead them on the right path. Maybe it was the fact that he was clinging to any scrap of familiarity so far from his own era. Maybe it was the knowledge that his own son would lay the foundations for the Aureate regime. But whatever the case, it felt that he should have been able to use that connection to help them realize that the Hierarchy was wrong.

_But I guess it’s too late for me to reach them,_ he thought to himself as their escorts guided them into the gardens they’d originally entered through. _And now there’s a very good chance that all of them are going to die as the war goes on._

Suddenly, their escorts doubled over, pressing their hands against their ears as their faces contorted in pain. One by one, they spasmed and collapsed onto the dirt floor of the gardens.

“Hurry. this way,” a familiar voice called out behind them. The two Paladins turned to see Thesalia au Raa peering out from behind the corner. In her hands she held the small device that Shiro and Keith both recognized was generating a jamField. Confused, they followed her as she led them back into the manor until they came to the last intersection they’d just passed, then turned down another hallway until they reached a storage area used for keeping cold food refrigerated Inside, they found Aeneus and Diomedes leaning against the pre-packaged food waiting for them to arrive.

“I don’t understand…” Shiro spluttered. “What… why…”

“We want to help.” Aeneus said. “Father always said we weren’t allowed to watch other people’s opinions before we had opinions of our own, but he thinks nothing of us reading biographies of our ancestor. The Rim deified Akari after his death, treating him as an example to follow. But I did some digging in father’s study while you were meeting with the ArchGovernors of Ilium. And I found this”.

The teen gently placed the holocube in Shiro’s hand. The air above the small storage unit flickered momentarily before an image began to form in a flurry of pixels. Shiro was about to ask what Aeneus had found when the image finished materializing and his train of thought came to a screeching halt.  

Despite spending months keeping his emotions under wraps for his own survival, Shiro let out an audible gasp as he looked at the photograph. The color-coded uniforms of the first Lunar colonists were identical to the cadet uniforms of the Galaxy Garrison in every way but color scheme. Each uniform corresponded to a color on the pyramid. There were people in the photo graph of every Color. But what drew his eyes was the Gold in the middle.

Of course, he wasn’t easily recognizable as a Gold. The date on the recording was decades before the Aurate aristocracy rolled out their genetic modifications. But despite the familiar gray eyes, and hands unblemished by Sigils, the man exuded the authority and power that Shiro had come to associate with Golds. Before he could reflect on the man any further, Aeneus pulled up a holo recording of the same man now considerably older and lying in bed with medical monitors hooked up to his body. Shiro barely had time to process what he was seeing before his descendent hit play.

_"This is the last will and testament of Akari Shirogane, son of Takashi Shirogane of 21 st Century Earth, and Tactus Shirogane of 29th Century Mars. Father, if you’re watching this, please forgive me. I have failed. _

_Silenius was one of the only people who ever knew where I really came from. I trusted him will all my secrets, and in the end, he betrayed that trust. We had taken inspiration from Voltron itself for the Hierarchy, each Color functioning as a limb of society the way that each of the lions formed one piece of Voltron. In the early years, things went smoothly. But after the greed of the other Golds drove us to war with Earth, Silenius and the other leaders of the Lunar colony began to believe that we were naturally superior to the other colors. That was when they started their eugenics program. It happened so slowly that by the time I’d even realized what we were doing, it was already too late. The system had become entrenched, and when I attempted to revere our course, Silenius stripped me of my influence among our peers.”_

_"So, I took my family and led the expansion beyond the asteroid belt, hoping to secure a power base beyond Silenius’ reach that I could use to reverse the course of events. I was so convinced that if I could model a better path for humanity on the Rim, I could undo the damage I had caused. But it was already too late. By that time, my children had already become indoctrinated with the Gold way of thinking. Io was originally an independent colony, but my eldest usurped my position as governor and pledged our moon’s allegiance to the new Sovereign.”_

_"By this point, my influence has been stripped away to nothing. My children have effectively confined me to a glorified nursing home. The Yellows treat me like an invalid, as if I am incapable of caring for myself. I have not had contact with any of the other children of the Paladins in decades. What little remains of my estate has already been seized by my children. The only things left in my possession are the relics of my early years being raised on Olkarion, and the family photo album. My children have dismissed the tales of their grandfather’s heroism as fairy tales, but it is my hope that by preserving the history of Voltron in these documents for future generations to find, that your legacy will live on.”_

_“My nurses refuse to speak of this to me, but I know I am dying. I know not whether one of my former family chose to poison me, or if this is simply my old age catching up to me. But the result is the same. My days are numbered. I only hope that my words can reach my descendants after my own children failed to hear: The Hierarchy as it has become is wrong. And if anyone of my bloodline chooses to stand up against this tyranny, know that your forebearer would be proud of you.”_

Shiro failed to keep his eyes dry as the recording finally ended. For every question his son’s final words had answered, dozens more sprang up in their place like weeds. But now wasn’t the time to worry about puzzling out the answers to those questions. After taking a few moments to compose his thoughts, he looked down at the young Golds. Aeneus met his eyes and smirked.

“If my father is going to uphold the great Akari au Raa as an ideal to strive towards, then surely Akari’s own words are reason enough to support the Rising,” the heir to House Raa commented.  “And as our father’s heir, I have access to his study. I can get us security codes for the 7th Fleet Garrison, strategic blueprints for Nesos and Sungrave… We can give you all the resources you need to take Io in a day.”

The surge of pride the Black Paladin felt at managing to reach even a handful of his descendants was quickly buried beneath new concerns and worries. Foremost of his concerns was how he was going to be able to keep these kids safe once the fighting broke out. While Aeneus and Diomedes had no doubt received basic training in self-defense and introductory Karavat lessons, that did not mean they were fit for combat.

While there hadn’t really been any other options with Voltron and his fellow Paladins had no idea what they were getting into, that didn’t mean he approved of the idea of teenagers fighting in this war. There was nothing he could really do though. Even if he were to overlook the fact that many of the LowReds serving in the rebellion after being liberated from the mines were as young as Pidge, he recognized the looks in all four of the children’s eyes. He’d seen that same stubborn, defiant refusal to back down enough times in his life, both in Keith’s eyes and his own, to know that none of the Raa children would be deterred by pleas to leave the fighting to the adults. They were going to get involved any way they could. The best Shiro could do was find a balance between protecting them and respecting their desire to participate.

“It’s going to be dangerous,” he told them. “No matter what we do, a lot of people are going to die. Your father might be killed. _You_ could be killed. I can’t stop you from helping, but I need to make sure you’re absolutely committed to doing this. If we fail, at best your father will lock you up for the rest of your lives. At worst, the Moon Lords will execute you alongside us. Once you throw your lot in with the Rising, there is no going back.” All three siblings exchanged looks confirming that they were in agreement before Aeneus turned back to Shiro and spoke for the group.

“We’re in.”

Shiro nodded, swallowing his concerns as he activated his commlink and placed a call to the bridge of the _Shirogane_.

“Tactus, I need you to contact the Reaper,” he said once the call went through. “There’s been a change of plans.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I struggled a lot with figuring out when to do this chapter, but I wanted to having a twist on the whole situation with the Rim by having the youngest generation of House Raa reject the hierarchy.


End file.
